Administrative History
The Washington Psychoanalytic Society was founded in 1914 at the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C. (later Saint Elizabeths Hospital) with William A. White serving as the first chairman of the organization. After World War I, the society disbanded but re-formed in 1924 as the Washington Psychoanalytic Association. In 1930 the Washington Baltimore Psychoanalytic Society formed and received provisional status as a training program by the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). The organization was renamed the Washington Baltimore Psychoanalytic Institute in 1940 and granted full status as a training program by the APsaA. Throughout the 1940s a theoretical divide emerged between the Washington and Baltimore practitioners resulting in the institute splitting in two in 1952 with the Washington Psychoanalytic Society emerging from the breakup. In the 1980s, the society began creating programs to train practitioners beyond physicians. In 2000 the society became the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis.