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The fourth international scientific forum was held at the Hampstead Clinic at the end of October 1982, the first of its kind without the actual presence of Anna Freud who had died only a few weeks before the forum took place. However, Anna Freud was very much with us in spirit, not least because she had been instrumental in the choice of the topic for last year's forum: ‘Fantasy and reality in the organization of the oedipal situation’.
Once again the forum was attended by some seventy invited psychoanalysts from all over the world, including the staff and students of our own Clinic.
The edited transcript of the tape-recorded plenary discussions printed in this issue includes brief summaries of both the pre-circulated paper by Dr Sam Abrams and the three papers read during the forum by Mrs Erna Furman, Miss Jill Hodges and Dr Arthur Valenstein. (The full texts of some or all of these papers are due to appear in a future volume of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child.) Editorial comments (in italics) have again been inserted at appropriate places to help the reader through the various stages of the proceedings.
Due to the length of the proceedings, the next instalment of the discussions of Anna Freud's book The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence will now appear only in part 3. However, the present issue does include the list of publications by staff members and students during 1982, usually published in part 1.
Sadly, since the appearance of the memorial issue for Anna Freud, we have lost Ruth Thomas who died on April 4 1983, and who, for some two decades, was a very special and central person in the training of our students and in the running of the Clinic in general. Many of us owe her a great deal and we will miss her wise counsel. This issue includes tributes paid to her at the funeral by Dr Clifford Yorke and Mr Kenneth Brill.