The Society was founded at a meeting in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in December 1961. Most of the twenty-one foundation members, who came from all four Scottish university medical school centres, were young men, lecturers or senior registrars for the most part. They elected John Smythies president and Ian Oswald secretary and drew up a constitution which committed the society to meet ‘at least twice a year … in the four Scottish universities in rotation’, other centres also being asked to act as host from time to time. The primary aim of the society was ‘to promote and encourage research into psychiatry and allied disciplines' and it was a multidisciplinary society from the beginning. Two of the foundation members were clinical psychologists and for some years a biochemist, Dr Todrick, was president.