IPS is a training institute and a professional community committed to the ongoing study of psychoanalysis. As a training institute it offers a careful, planned curriculum governed by a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective and approved by the International Psychoanalytic Association. As a society, it offers its members a variety of programs and opportunities for study, discussion and the continuing interchange of ideas as well as society meetings.

IPS is recognized as a provisional institute and society of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Graduates of IPS are automatically eligible for membership in the International Psychoanalytic Association.

IPS is a member of the Consortium of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies. This affords trainees and society members access to eminent teachers, scholars, and researchers from other training institutions through visiting lecturers and mutually sponsored symposia.

IPS offers candidates a four-year program which includes seminars in theory, development, psychopathology and technique of psychoanalysis. The course of study leads to a certificate in psychoanalysis. It includes training in contemporary Freudian, contemporary Kleinian and Bionian, as well as interpersonal, relational and intersubjective psychoanalysis.