Master Speaker Series

The Master Speaker Series is a continuing-education offering designed to keep practising clinicians in living contact with the leading edge of psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic thought. Each month, an internationally known speaker presents a ninety-minute lecture followed by a forty-five-minute live discussion, open to participants around the world by video-conference.

The series is carefully curated. The Council selects speakers whose work represents either established excellence in the field — major figures whose contributions have shaped contemporary practice — or significant emerging directions that thoughtful clinicians should know about. Recent and forthcoming seasons have included speakers on complex trauma, the psychoanalytic understanding of social processes, work with psychotic states, contemporary developments in mentalisation-based treatment, and clinical questions arising from the integration of neuroscience with depth psychology.

Each session is structured for adult professional learning. Speakers send pre-reading at least two weeks in advance, giving participants the opportunity to prepare seriously. The lecture itself is substantive — the format is deliberately not a brief talk followed by questions, but a full professional presentation with the depth and density such learning requires. The live discussion that follows is genuinely two-way, with speakers engaging with clinical material and theoretical challenges raised from the floor.

The series is particularly valuable for clinicians who completed their core training some years ago and who are aware that the field has moved on. It is also used by early-career clinicians as a continuing exposure to the texture and vocabulary of senior professional thought. Many participants subscribe for multiple years, treating the series as a standing commitment to professional development.

All sessions are recorded and remain available to participants for the duration of the season. Continuing-education credits are issued for each attended session. The IPAS Certificate of Continuing Education is issued annually to participants who attend the majority of sessions.