The Co-Editors' Note on Change

We feel deeply honored to have been selected to be the co-editors of the American Journal of Psychoanalysis, after Dr. Giselle Galdi, the Editor of the Journal, stepped down from her position. At the same time, we are truly humbled to follow in the footsteps of such exceptional editors, beginning with Dr. Karen Horney, the founder of the journal, and most recently with Giselle Galdi, whose dedication, vision and leadership as Editor-in-Chief has shaped the journal in an exemplary manner for over 25 years!

When she became the Editor in 2000, she intended to transform the journal into an international publication, with an International Editorial Board, in addition to the North American Editorial Board. Indeed, under her leadership the journal has thrived as an international forum “committed to the highest levels of excellence and respect to the founding members' wishes to be a forum to communicate the best ideas of psychoanalysis in a spirit of freedom from dogma” (Galdi, 2010, p. 1). Her work was guided by her desire to “expand into new areas of psychoanalysis … offer contemporary perspectives on theory and treatment” and “maintain our commitment to innovative ideas” (Galdi, 2001, p. 1). Over the many years of her editorship, she has accomplished that and much more.

She started a few-years-long fundraising effort to pay for the digitalization expense of the entire archives of the Journal, going back to 1941, and finally, in 2010, the journal became part of Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP-web), ensuring ongoing access to the full canon of the AJP to colleagues throughout the world. Each year the journal has featured special issues or issues with special sections exploring a wide range of topics, to list just a few: Adolescence (Cohen, 2001), Shame (Kilborne, 2003), Culture and Trauma (Prince, 2007), Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (Appelbaum, 2013), What Leads to Basic Change? (Prince, 2015), Changing External and Internal World (Volkan, 2015), The South America