Editor's Introduction

AS THE NEW EdITOR OF THE Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, I greet the members of the Association and our readers. The Journal has been passed on to me, and the Board in excellent shape: We boast the broadest circulation of any existing psychoanalytic journal both in number of readers and in breadth of its distribution. I thank the retiring Editor, Dr. Harold P. Blum, as I am sure you do, for providing us with his maximum effort over these many years to make the Journal what it is. The excellent standards of scholarship and care in selection of original manuscripts are difficult achievements, but he did the job with concern and foresight. In his own words, he had excellent help from many, including the members of his various Boards. They are also to be congratulated. I shall carry on with the last Board selected by Dr. Blum, and hope to win their confidence and cooperation in continuing the job that was started by my predecessor. I am grateful also to Dr. John Frosch, a mentor since residency years, who began this Journal and continues to lend support to me. To both former Editors, my thanks for your efforts and for your confidence.

Now, what lies ahead? I am sure that experience in the position will alter my untutored initial plans—I think that is a sure rule of life. However, I do have some ideas about what a journal is, and what I shall try to accomplish: A journal is first and foremost a medium for exchange among colleagues and coprofessionals. New ideas, themes, and scientific demonstrations should make up the bulk of what we record in the Journal. It also should be a vehicle for discourse, and even for controversy as the times, empirical findings, and models of thought change. Psychoanalysis is growing as every science does. Our intellectual stamina becomes resurgent in the wake of new observations and advances within and outside of psychoanalysis, in other sciences. Thus, I would encourage potential contributors to submit wel