The diverse range of modalities and practitioners within the OPS contributes to creating a rich and inspiring community. We welcome a range of approaches so that we can learn from each other and continue to foster a thriving psychotherapeutic community in the Oxford area. Our current membership is predominantly made up of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapists and counsellors, and integrative and person-centred therapists. We also have representatives of other humanistic approaches including existential, gestalt, psychosynthesis, solution-focussed and transpersonal psychology as well as transactional analysis practitioners. Cognitive behavioural therapy is represented as is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and we have members who are group analysts as well as representatives of the arts therapies specialising in music, art and drama.
Our programme of monthly talks by distinguished international, national and local speakers covers a range of topics aimed variously at more experienced and at beginning therapists; some more theoretical, some more ‘practical’, but aways with clinical relevance. We are currently meeting in person at the Friends Meeting House in central Oxford. Some meetings are held on Zoom. In addition, we facilitate peer activities that enable local therapists to meet, socialise and engage in professional exchange: a clinical supervision group and a walking group. Outside of these activities, we hope that members might feel inclined to meet as they desire and get to know each other and share ideas about our work, perhaps over a drink or a meal. We also have a rich online archive of past and present talks and writing that is available to members, as well as a Bulletin repository for news and information of interest to local therapists.
In 1985 the vibrant Oxford psychoanalytic community created the OPS. The founders of the society were from the psychiatry-based working community. This was a coming together of both the relatively young Psychotherapy Department at the Warneford Hospital, established by Dr Anthony Storr in the 1970s, and practising analysts in Oxford, notably Isobel Menzies Lyth and Dr Donald Meltzer, as well as the colleagues practising around them. The inaugural lecture was given by Dr Malcolm Pines, a founder member of the Institute of Group Analysis and consultant psychoanalyst at the Tavistock Clinic.
Since then the society has evolved and adapted to incorporate a diverse range of modalities and approaches, and be a hub for peer discussion, support, professional and clinical exchange, and socialising amongst local psychotherapists.
