The Association is an interest group for psychotherapists. It was founded for the purpose of exploring how to apply psychodynamic approaches to the theory and practice of psychotherapy. Membership is open to anyone who lives or works in the North West and shares this interest

Our members are mainly qualified psychotherapists or trainees from different therapeutic orientations. We believe that dialogue between our approaches is mutually enriching. Our participation in monthly presentations counts as formal Continuing Professional Development for our various professional bodies.

Our organisation was founded in the 1970s. Membership has always been open to anyone living or working in the North West who is interested in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. At our foundation most members were psychoanalytic psychotherapists working in the nascent psychotherapy services in the National Health Service. The main aims of the Association were to encourage the development of services and training within the North West Region of the NHS. The culmination of the work of a number of connected psychotherapy organisations, including the Association, can be seen in the well established clinical services in Manchester, Salford, Preston, and Blackpool and the training courses run by the North West Institute of Dynamic Psychotherapy and Group Analysis North.

By the mid 1990s most of the original aims of the NWRPA were achieved through a number of organisations, which had grown out of, or were related to, the Association. The development of psychotherapy in the North West over the last thirty years means that the Association can now be solely devoted to being an interest group, independent of clinical organisations and training bodies.

By constitution, tradition and consensus our identity as an interest group has remained constant over the years. What has changed is the professional affiliation and orientation of our members. For many years most of our members were psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Now they are joined by Art Therapists, Counsellors, Music Therapists, Existential and Experiential Constructivist Psychotherapists. This allows for a complex and creative dialogue around a shared fascination with the rich tradition of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The most significant new group have been NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) psychotherapists

We meet on the second Monday evening of each month at the Friends’ Meeting House in Central Manchester, beginning at 7.00 p.m. and ending at 9.00 p.m. Each meeting is organised around a presentation that flows out of our shared interest in psychoanalytic theory and technique. Recent presentations and group discussions have explored  topics of ‘Eureka Moments in Therapy’,  ‘Outcomes of Imprisonment and Trauma’ and ‘Loving and Hating’. Our interest is not confined to the narrowly technical. Members of the Association are fascinated by music; art, literature and wider social issues and our presentations reflect this.

For many years we have held annual symposia with noted psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Previous speakers have included Patrick Casement, the  Kleinian Donald Meltzer, the group analysts Malcolm and Dinorah Pines and the Feminist analyst Juliet Mitchell. Our guest speaker for 2008 was the psychoanalyst Anne Alvarez with The Psychotherapist’s Choice, and for 2009  the NLP Psychotherapist  Juliet Grayson with Externalising the Landscape of the Mind: Healing with the Pesso Boyden System.