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Welcome to this volume of Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis. I am guest editing this special issue and begin by acknowledging the huge contribution made to the journal by Orit Badouk Epstein, who has decided to stand down as editor after five years at the helm. From 2017 she led the editorial board to produce eleven volumes of cutting-edge content by high-profile authors. Having curated this edition, I appreciate how much time, thought, and coordination the role requires.
During the last challenging two years in particular, when Covid anxieties, lockdowns, and restrictions highlighted the vital importance of attachment relationships in the human psyche, Orit provided consistency and continuity for her colleagues on the editorial board, whilst at the same time curating, writing, and editing a wonderful book, Shame Matters: Attachment and Relational Perspectives for Psychotherapists (Badouk Epstein, 2022), a valuable new resource for practitioners.
I give my personal thanks to Orit for her considerable creative input to this journal and speak for everyone involved in sending best wishes to her for all her future projects.
Currently putting together the next volume is the new editor, Dr Aysha Begum. Aysha is a clinical psychologist and systemic therapist working in the National Health Service. She brings twenty years' clinical, teaching, and research expertise, including experience of publishing in peer-reviewed journals, to her new role. She is also an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and Bowlby Centre member with a private practice. We welcome her to the team and look forward to a new era for the Attachment journal under her auspices.
In the meantime, this special issue focuses on what, and how we eat. Food has the power to bring people together and nourish relationships, or to divide. It is a potent medium for communication, for community-building, for control, and for attack. It carries a powerful political punch.