From the Editors

We are pleased to present our first compilation of reviews as the new editors of JAPA Review of Books. It is our privilege to follow Rosemary Balsam and Paul Schwaber, who have led the book review section for fifteen years with thoughtfulness and wisdom, bringing new and important psychoanalytic works to these pages. As editors we hope to continue in their excellent tradition, presenting book reviews and essays that make new ideas accessible and offer fresh perspective on old ideas.

With our inaugural issue, we are delighted to bring something new to these pages. In a column we are calling “Why I Write,” we hope to foster a discussion about the experience of writing as an author for whom psychoanalysis is centrally important. Whether we write about our clinical and theoretical work, personal experience, literature, arts, or politics; whether we produce scholarly works, memoir, or fiction—why do we do it? What drives us to put our thoughts to paper, to engage our minds in the task of writing? What motivates us to write about our work, or about other matters important to us? “Why I Write” will feature authors' personal reflections about the experience of writing, exploring such topics as the process of writing while seeing patients; the mutual influences of writing, treatment (as patient, therapist, or both), and teaching; the complexities of sharing our clinical work on the written page, where both our colleagues and our patients may read about it; and the experience of having our manuscripts in print. We welcome contributions from psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic therapists, and also from academics, writers, and artists for whom psychoanalytic theory—or a personal experience of psychoanalytic treatment—has shaped the work of writing. Please watch for “Why I Write” at the end of each JAPA Review of Books.

It seems fitting that our first “Why I Write” entry is a contribution from Warren Poland, who preceded Balsam and Schwaber as editor of the review. We have paired Po