The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom.

History

It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as The Psychological Society, the organisation initially admitted only recognised teachers in the field of psychology. The ten founder members were: Its current name of The British Psychological Society was taken in 1906 to avoid confusion with another group named The Psychological Society. Under the guidance of Charles Myers, membership was opened up to members of the medical profession in 1919. In 1941 the society was incorporated. In 1965 it was a granted a Royal charter.

Organisation

The Society is both a learned and a professional body. As such it provides support and advice on research and practice issues. It is also a Registered Charity which imposes certain constraints on what it can and cannot do. For example, it cannot campaign on issues which are seen as party political. The BPS is not the statutory regulation body for Practitioner Psychologists in the UK which is the Health and Care Professions Council. The Society has a large number of specialist and regional branches throughout the United Kingdom. It holds its Annual Conference, usually in May, in a different town or city each year. In addition, each of the sub-sections hold their own conferences and there is also a range of specialist meetings convened to consider relevant issues. The Society is also a publishing body publishing a range of specialist journals, books and reports.

Membership grades and post-nominals

In 2019 the BPS had 60,604 members and subscribers, in all fields of psychology, 20,243 of whom were Chartered Members. There are a number of grades of members:

Professional qualifications

Response to the Cass Review

The Cass Review was published in April 2024, as an independent review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, having been commissioned in 2020 by NHS England and NHS Improvement. It found, regarding medical interventions, a "lack of high-quality evidence", and it made a large number of recommendations, including those in the psychological area relevant to the BPS, including social transition, and conflicting clinical views between 'affirming care' versus 'exploratory care'. In June 2024 the BPS issued an update to their "Guidelines for Psychologists Working with Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity". An open letter criticising the BPS for not referring to the Cass Review in these guidelines was sent on 14 August to Professor Tony Lavender, Chair of the BPS Practice Board, by Pat Harvey, David Pilgrim and Peter Harvey, all BPS members and clinical psychologists. They state that the revised BPS guidelines: "represent an active barrier to much needed change in philosophy and practice for psychologists working in re-formed Gender Services in the immediate future". However, the BPS has clarified that its updated guidelines did not refer to the Cass Review because these relate to adults, not children and young people. The BPS made this point on its website: The purpose of this interim review was to assess the content in the guidance and update where necessary and appropriate. We know that the area of U18s and gender incongruence is a challenging and often highly politically charged one, which is why we have begun recruitment for the Task and Finish Group. We estimate this work will take approximately 18 months.

Presidents

• 1920–1923 Charles Samuel Myers • 1923–1926 Charles Edward Spearman • 1926–1929 Francis Aveling • 1929–1932 Beatrice Edgell • 1932–1935 John Flügel • 1935–1938 James Drever Sr. • 1938–1941 Albert William Wolters • 1941–1943 Cyril Burt • 1943–1944 Tom Hatherley Pear • 1944–1945 Millais Culpin • 1945–1946 Godfrey Thomson • 1946–1947 Robert John Bartlett • 1947–1948 Charles Wilfred Valentine • 1948–1949 Stanley J.F. Philpott • 1949–1950 Robert Henry Thouless • 1950–1951 Frederic Charles Bartlett • 1951–1952 William Brown • 1952–1953 Cecil Alec Mace • 1953–1954 Arthur Rex Knight • 1954–1955 Philip E. Vernon • 1955–1956 Leslie S. Hearnshaw • 1956–1957 Eric Benjamin Strauss • 1957–1958 Alec Rodger • 1958–1959 Magdalen Dorothea Vernon • 1959–1960 Frederick Viggers Smith • 1960–1961 James Drever Jr. • 1961–1962 Edwin A. Peel • 1962–1963 George C. Drew • 1963–1964 Arthur Summerfield • 1964–1965 Donald Eric Broadbent • 1965–1966 George Westby • 1966–1967 Grace Rawlings • 1967–1968 George Seth • 1968–1969 Boris Semeonoff • 1969–1970 Robert John Audley • 1970–1971 Harry Gwynne Jones • 1971–1972 Harry Kay • 1972–1973 Max Hamilton • 1973–1974 Brian Malzard Foss • 1974–1975 Oliver Louis Zangwill • 1975–1976 Jack Tizard • 1976–1977 May Alison Davidson • 1977–1978 Alan Douglas Benson Clarke • 1978–1979 Philip Marcus Levy • 1979–1980 Peter H. Venables • 1980–1981 Kevin J. Connolly • 1981–1982 Derek Ernest Blackman • 1982–1983 Ralph R. Hetherington • 1983–1984 Halla Beloff • 1984–1985 Charles Ian Howarth • 1985–1986 Robert Maclaughlin Farr • 1986–1987 David Legge • 1987–1988 Lea S. Pearson • 1988–1989 Anthony John Chapman • 1989–1990 Maurice Anthony Gale • 1990–1991 Peter Edwin Morris • 1991–1992 Fraser Norman Watts • 1992–1993 Edgar Miller • 1993–1994 Ann Mary Colley • 1994–1995 Geoffrey Anthony Lindsay • 1995–1996 Stephen Edward Newstead • 1996–1997 Margaret Valerie McAllister • 1997–1998 Christopher Noel Cullen • 1998–1999 Ingrid Cecilia Lunt • 1999–2000 Patricia Frankish • 2000–2001 Tommy MacKay • 2001–2002 Vicki Bruce • 2002–2003 Graham Davey • 2003–2004 Alexander (Zander) Wedderburn • 2004–2005 Ken Brown • 2005–2006 Graham Powell • 2006–2007 Ray Miller • 2007–2008 Pam Maras • 2008–2009 Elizabeth Campbell • 2009–2010 Sue Gardner • 2010–2011 Gerry Mulhern • 2011–2012 Carole Allan • 2012–2013 Peter Banister • 2013–2014 Richard Mallows • 2014–2015 Dorothy Miell • 2015–2016 Jamie Hacker Hughes • 2016–2017 Peter Kinderman • 2017–2018 Nicola Gale • 2018–2019 Kate Bullen • 2019–2020 David Murphy • 2020–2021 Hazel McLaughlin • 2021–2022 Katherine Carpenter • 2022–2024 Nicky Hayes • 2024–2026 Roman Raczka

Honorary members and fellows

Honorary members

The following persons have been honorary members of the society: In 1946 all surviving honorary members were made honorary fellows.

Honorary fellows

The following persons are or have been honorary fellows of the society: • 1946 Carl Jung, Sir William Mitchell • 1950 Gordon Allport, Clark L. Hull, David Katz, Wolfgang Köhler, Karl Lashley, Gardner Murphy, Lewis Terman, Louis Leon Thurstone • 1952 Thomas Hunter • 1954 Edgar Adrian, Edward C. Tolman, Robert S. Woodworth, Jean Piaget, Edwin Boring, Cyril Burt, Frederic Bartlett, Donald O. Hebb, Ernst Kretschmer • 1955 Albert William Wolters • 1958 May Smith, Melanie Klein, Agostino Gemelli, Alexander Luria, Tom Hatherley Pear, Charles Wilfred Valentine, Henry Tasman Lovell • 1959 Henry Cohen, 1st Baron Cohen of Birkenhead • 1960 Ernest Hilgard, Roger Russell • 1961 Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain • 1962 George Humphrey, B. F. Skinner, Robert H. Thouless • 1963 Otto Klineberg, Robert John Bartlett • 1965 Anna Freud, Cecil Alec Mace • 1966 Aubrey Lewis, Robert Robertson Rusk, Fred Schonell • 1967 Lionel Penrose • 1968 Neal E. Miller, Erwin Stengel • 1970 Edward George Glover, Tony Giffard, 3rd Earl of Halsbury, Magdalen Dorothea Vernon • 1972 Raymond Bernard Cattell, Harry Harlow, Henry Murray • 1974 Michael Fordham • 1977 James J. Gibson, Eleanor J. Gibson • 1978 Michael Rutter, Philip E. Vernon • 1979 Desmond Pond • 1981 Robert Hinde • 1982 Oliver Zangwill • 1984 Jerome Bruner • 1985 Noam Chomsky • 1986 Donald Broadbent • 1988 Herbert A. Simon • 1989 George Armitage Miller • 1990 Jack Davies • 1991 Elizabeth Loftus • 1992 Michael Argyle • 1993 Margaret Donaldson, Klaus Werner Wedell • 1994 Ulric Neisser, Freda Gladys Newcombe • 1995 Alan Baddeley, Patrick Rabbitt • 1997 Victoria Bruce, John Morton, Peter B. Warr • 1998 Heinz Rudolph Schaffer • 1999 Antony John Chapman • 2000 Richard Gregory • 2001 Maurice Anthony Gale • 2003 Miles R.C. Hewstone • 2005 Andy Young • 2006 Uta Frith, William Yule, Glynis M. Breakwell • 2007 Alan D.B. Clarke, Ann M. Clarke, Hannah Steinberg • 2008 David Canter • 2009 David M. Clark • 2010 Raymond Henry Charles Bull, Cary Lynn Cooper • 2011 James Orford, John Weinman, Marie Johnston • 2012 Dianne Berry, David P. Farrington, Glyn W. Humphreys, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Peter Saville • 2013 Saths Cooper • 2014 Dorothy V. M. Bishop • 2016 Erica Burman, Wendy Hollway • 2017 Carolyn Kagan, Michael Murray, John Oates • 2018 Anne Colley • 2019 Michael Berger, Martin Fisher, Ruth Mann, Ray Miller, Jill Wilkinson • 2020 Jonathan A. Smith • 2021 Steve Reicher, Elizabeth Stokoe • 2023 Lucy Johnstone • 2024 Maggie Snowling, Emmy van Deurzen

Society publications

Journals

The BPS publishes 11 journals: Special Group in Coaching Psychology publications:

The Psychologist

The Psychologist is a members' monthly magazine that has been published since 1988, superseding the BPS Bulletin.

The Research Digest

Since 2003 the BPS has published reports on new psychology research in the form of a free fortnightly email, and since 2005, also in the form of an online blog – both are referred to as the BPS Research Digest. As of 2014, the BPS states that the email has over 32,000 subscribers and the Digest blog attracts hundreds of thousands of page views a month. In 2010 the Research Digest blog won "best psychology blog" in the inaugural Research Blogging Awards. The Research Digest has been written and edited by psychologist Christian Jarrett since its inception About usResearch into the mental health of prisoners, digested

Books

The Society publishes a series of textbooks in collaboration with Wiley-Blackwell. These cover most of the core areas of psychology.

Member networks: Sections, divisions, branches and groups

The British Psychological Society currently has ten divisions and nineteen sections. Divisions and sections differ in that the former are open to practitioners in a certain field of psychology, so professional and qualified psychologists only will be entitled to full membership of a division, whereas the latter are interest groups comprising members of the BPS who are interested in a particular academic aspect of psychology.

Divisions

The divisions include: The Division of Clinical Psychology is the largest division within the BPS – it is subdivided into thirteen faculties:

Sections

The Sections currently include: Note: The term 'division' in the American Psychological Association does not have the same meaning as it does in the British Psychological Society, coming closer to what the British Psychological Society refers to as 'sections'. Branches are for members in the same geographical region.

Special groups

BPS currently has the following special groups to provide a forum for members working in particular specialist fields, with a particular focus on training, practice, and professional development

Regional Branches

The Society also organises regional branches throughout the United Kingdom. These include the following branches:

Statutory regulation

BPS has been concerned with the question of statutory registration of psychologists since the 1930s. It received its charter in 1965 and an amendment in 1987 which allowed it to maintain a register of psychologists. The UK government announced its intention to widen statutory regulation, to include inter alia psychologists, following a number of scandals arising in the 1990s in the psychotherapy field. The BPS was in favour of statutory regulation, but opposed the proposed regulator, the Health Professions Council (HPC), preferring the idea of a new Psychological Professions Council which would map quite closely onto its own responsibilities. The government resisted this, however, and in June 2009, under the Health Care and Associated Professions (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order, regulation of most of the psychology professions passed to the HCPC, the renamed Health and Care Professions Council.

Society offices

The Society's main office is currently in Leicester in the United Kingdom. According to BPS HR department, as of April 2019 there were 113 staff members at the Leicester office, 9 in London. There are also smaller regional offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow. The archives are deposited at the Wellcome Library in the Euston Road, London.

Logo and YouTube

The British Psychological Society's logo is an image of the Greek mythical figure Psyche, personification of the soul, holding an oil lamp. The use of her image is a reference to the origins of the word psychology. The lamp symbolises learning and is also a reference to the story of Psyche. Eros was in love with Psyche and would visit her at night, but had forbidden her from finding out his identity. She was persuaded by her jealous sisters to discover his identity by holding a lamp to his face as he slept. Psyche accidentally burnt him with oil from the lamp, and he awoke and flew away. The Society has its own YouTube channel.