History of the Guild

The Guild of Psychotherapists was founded in 1974 by a group of practitioners from Freudian, Jungian and Phenomenological backgrounds with an ambition to escape what they saw as the elitism of the psychoanalytic establishment at the time. They chose the term ‘psychotherapists’ over ‘psychoanalysts’ in part because the founders included Jungians (who had rejected aspects of psychoanalysis) and phenomenologists, and partly because the term psychotherapy had a more ordinary ring about it that people across society might more readily relate to.

Initially the idea was discussed by Dr Peter Lomas and Ben Churchill. Peter Lomas was a doctor and had trained at the Institute of Psychoanalysis; he had been an analysand of Charles Rycroft and had been supervised by Winnicott and Marion Milner, but had become critical of the elitism of Institute in the 1960s. 

Both Peter and Ben were influenced by Ivan Illich’s ideas in his book ‘Deschooling Society’. What they envisaged was a loosely constituted organisation without a hierarchy, in which those who wanted to learn about psychotherapy would be enabled to meet with practitioners who wanted to share their knowledge and experience. The training was pluralist from its inception. The ‘Guild’ title derived from the idea of providing a framework of learning based on apprenticeship and the learning of psychotherapy as if it was a craft. To break away from the elitism of the older psychoanalytic institutions, the term ‘psychotherapy’ was chosen over ‘psychoanalysis’.

Peter and Ben were joined by John Payne, head of the student counselling at LSE, Dr Camilla Bosanquet, John Heaton, Joe Redfearn and Peter Barham.

The Guild continued as a growing members organisation without a building until it acquired its building at 47 Nelson Square in 1992, at which point the low cost clinic was also established.

The Guild’s pluralism has also evolved over the decades. Kleinian analysis and Object Relations became more dominant in the 1980s, and in the 1990s, Lacanian psychoanalysis was included within the syllabus. Also in the 1990s the Race and Culture Group was established, which became a standing committee in 2020.

The Guild has always been active in debates about psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In 2009 the Guild was a co-author of the Maresfield Report challenging the attempt by the government to introduce state-regulation of psychotherapy.