In these Pages…

We begin this issue with a concise and altogether accessible clinical case commentary by Laura Josephs. That case, originally presented by Michelle Price in our last issue, explores the dynamics of incest. Here, we find new resonances of comprehension, new textures of meaning that argue both the value of self psychology and of Price's therapeutic efforts.

Also from self psychology, Kenneth Thomas offers in the paper that follows another case commentary. The case he selects is altogether daunting: Freud's Wolfman. Thomas tries to bring new insights to this classic case and, as Josephs does with Price, highlights those elements easily overlooked but that just possibly are those on which hang the essentials of therapeutic succcess.

Moshe Halevi Spero comments about the Wolfman, too. More precisely, Spero introduces a Lacanian perspective with Freud's analysis of a mispronunciation by the Wolfman. Spero develops his analysis of a moment in therapy, of a phrase seemingly simple and straightforward, yet which may possess a trove of meaning. Can we join Spero in his insistence that the mutilated word, the slightly altered word, has the significance he finds? It seems worth our effort.

Returning our attention once again to self psychology, Michael Robbins takes us in a deeply theoretical direction. He examines the questions: What happens if we look at self psychology from the point of view of Fairbairn? Is Fairbairn a legitimate antecedent to the work of Kohut? Robbins calls on self psychology to turn to Fairbairn and patch up its weakness in early child development.

Finally, we consider the vitally important interface between psychoanalysis and society in two papers of ongoing relevance. Ann Ruth Turkel reflects on the possible origins of male chauvinism. Nancy Caro Hollander, in what is a poignant and highly distressing paper, persuasively challenges the legitimacy of neutrality as an analytic ideal in an authoritarian society. Our distress is in no way eased by the accompany