How to find a certified jungian analyst iaap?

The International Association for Analytical Psychology is the governing body of the profession worldwide — the organization that sets training standards, accredits member societies, and maintains the global network of certified analysts. Finding a practitioner through its infrastructure is the most reliable way to locate someone whose formation meets the field's core requirements.

The IAAP itself maintains a directory of member analysts searchable by country and region at iaap.org. Because the Association operates through constituent national and regional societies rather than directly credentialing individuals in most cases, the more granular search often runs through those societies. Samuels (1985) lists the major English-language training institutes — the Society of Analytical Psychology in London, the New York Association for Analytical Psychology, the societies of Northern and Southern California, the Chicago Society, the New England Society, and the Inter-Regional Society for those outside major metropolitan centers — and each maintains its own referral list. The Inter-Regional Society is particularly useful for readers in parts of the United States not served by a city-based institute.

What distinguishes a certified analyst from the broader field of Jungian-influenced therapists is a specific formation. Jung himself articulated the requirements in a letter preserved in the Collected Works:

Above all, I demand knowledge of clinical psychiatry and of organic nervous diseases. Secondly a training analysis, 3. a certain amount of philosophical education, 4. study of primitive psychology, 5. of comparative religion, 6. of mythology, 7. of analytical psychology... 8. training of one's own personality, i.e., development and differentiation of functions which are in need of education.

The training analysis — the analyst's own sustained work with a recognized senior analyst — remains the non-negotiable center of this formation. Edinger put it plainly: the personality of the therapist is the instrument of the process, and the crucial requirement is consciousness, meaning thorough awareness of one's own psychology (Edinger, 2002). An IAAP-affiliated analyst has completed this process under supervision, passed examinations, and been accepted by a constituent society — not merely studied Jungian ideas academically.

In practical terms: the IAAP website (iaap.org) offers a "Find an Analyst" function. The Jungian societies in your region — whichever is geographically closest — will have referral services and can often match you to an analyst whose particular orientation (classical, developmental, or archetypal) fits what you are looking for. Samuels (1985) describes these three schools as genuine differences in emphasis rather than mere stylistic variation, so it is worth knowing that a classical analyst will work differently from a developmentally oriented one, and both differently from an analyst shaped by Hillman's archetypal approach.

If you are outside a major metropolitan area, the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts specifically organizes training and referral for those not served by other US societies. Internationally, the IAAP maintains contact information for affiliated groups in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Italy, and elsewhere.

  • Find a Jungian analyst — seba.health's curated directory of depth-oriented practitioners
  • What is analytical psychology? — the school Jung founded and what distinguishes it from adjacent traditions
  • James Hillman — portrait of the founder of archetypal psychology, one of the three major post-Jungian orientations
  • Andrew Samuels — the analyst who mapped the three schools of post-Jungian thought

Sources Cited

  • Jung, C.G., 1975, Letters Volume 2, 1951–1961
  • Samuels, Andrew, 1985, Jung and the Post-Jungians
  • Edinger, Edward F., 2002, Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective