A U.K. group was formed at the Sheffield meeting, holding its first independent meeting the following year. There are also groups in continental Europe, with Germany and the Scandinavian countries particularly well-represented, and in Latin America. Full international meetings take place annually, and additional meetings are held by regional groups. The U.K. group meets twice a year. However, the organisation welcomes contributions concerning all orientations and modalities of therapy.
Membership is multidisciplinary and the culture collaborative.
The spring U.K. meeting generally involves a lot of very hard work on tensions between methods and between theoretical schools of therapy in a very informal and friendly atmosphere. Most members, especially here in Britain, are clinicians first and researchers second, making S.P.R. a supportive organisation for practitioners wanting to find their way into active research. Some of the strongest influences have come from researchers looking for common factors and generic models of the psychotherapy process. Members of S.P.R. have been, and are currently, involved in all forms of research into psychotherapy. There is a strong interest in the use of qualitative, discourse and ideographic methods though work in these paradigms has yet to dominate a conference.