The Ninth International Scientific Colloquium entitled ‘Playing: Its Role in Child and Adult Psychoanalysis’ was held at the Anna Freud Centre on November 6 and 7, 1987. This meeting, attended by invited analysts from a variety of countries and by staff and students of the Centre, numbered eighty people in all.

In reporting the proceedings of the 1987 Colloquium in the Bulletin, we have decided to change the format so as to be able to include fuller accounts of the pre-circulated material and a complete record of the statements by the five members of the panel. What has been lost, in electing not to publish remarks from the floor and summaries of the workshops, has been retrieved to a large extent in Professor Wallerstein's summary of the participants' responses to the papers and of their deliberations in the workshops.