The CGPCA-GCPEA provides opportunities across Canada in both official languages for the sharing and promotion of psychoanalytic work with infants, children, adolescents, and emergent adults. Our mission is to enrich the practice of adult analysts in the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society (CPS) with clinical and theoretical knowledge garnered from this work. Additionally, our goal is to act as reference point and psychoanalytic resource for psychotherapists in the community offering treatment to these populations and to liaise with other organizations who share the same concerns.

The CGPCA has existed since the 1990s, thanks to the initiative of Dr. Clifford Scott. Dr. W. C. M. Scott was born in 1903 in Metz, a small town south of Toronto, and died in Montreal at the age of 94. He studied medicine at the University of Toronto and earned a degree in psychiatry in the United States, most notably at Harvard University. In 1931, Dr. Scott moved to the UK.

From 1931 to 1933, he underwent personal psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein while training as both a child and adult psychoanalyst. He was highly active in the British Psychoanalytic Society, regularly engaging with leading figures in child and adult psychoanalysis, including Klein, Anna Freud, Winnicott, Segal, Jones, Strachey, Ella Sharpe, and others. In 1954, he was elected President of the British Psychoanalytic Society.

In 1955, Dr. Scott returned to Canada at the invitation of Dr. Cameron of McGill University to further develop psychoanalysis in the country. After years of teaching at various university hospitals, Dr. Scott—disagreeing with the academic control over psychoanalytic training—left his position in 1959. He became a founding member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Institute and established child psychoanalysis in Canada.

This proved to be a cornerstone for the development of adult and child psychoanalysts. In 1960, the first training program in child psychoanalysis was presented at the Canadian Psychoanalytic Institute and accepted by the International Psychoanalytical Association. By 1990, the Canadian Psychoanalytic Institute and the IPA recognized 26 child psychoanalysts, with an additional five candidates in training.

There was such enthusiasm for child psychoanalysis that Dr. Clifford Scott created the Canadian Group of Child Psychoanalysts, which later became the Canadian Group of Psychoanalysts for Children and Adolescents (CGPCA). The group’s aim is to provide a forum for adult and child psychoanalysts to exchange ideas and discuss how the psychic development of children and adolescents impacts adult psychoanalysis, thus promoting the integration of child psychoanalytic training into adult psychoanalysis programs. The group also seeks to raise awareness in the psychotherapeutic community about the psychoanalytic specificity of treating children, adolescents, and their families, and to foster interest in child psychoanalysis.

After 35 years, the CGPCA remains active and increasingly vibrant. It continues to meet on the third Monday of each month. Commonly referred to as “the children’s group,” it consistently hosts clinical presentations from both newer and experienced clinicians, enriching and stimulating the metapsychological understanding of the psychic lives of children, adolescents, and, more recently, their families.

References

Greenfield, B. (2004), A Brief History of Child Psychoanalysis in Montreal.
Revue canadienne de psychanalyse.
Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol.12, No.1
Printemps 2004, Spring 2004. Pages1à13.

Différents textes. Collected Papers.
W. Clifford M. Scott. (1903-1997)
Revue canadienne de psychanalyse.
Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis,
Vol.27. No.1. Printemps, Spring 2019

Grignon, Michel.(editeur. Editor)
Psychoanalysis and The Zest For Living.
Reflexions and Psychoanalytic Writings
in Memory of W.C.M.Scott. Esf Publishers
First 1998.