Editorial

This is the last issue of the Bulletin in its present form. Less than five years since its reissue in 1948, the Bulletin is on the threshold of another change. It therefore seems appropriate to look back and examine the purposes which led to its publication. Perhaps the best way to do so is to quote from an editorial which was published at that time, setting forth the purposes of the new Bulletin:

“An expanding central organization has a tendency to lose touch with its constituent elements. In the name of efficiency a relationship is sacrificed which may too often lead to the formulation of policy not in keeping with the attitudes of its component parts.

“Most organizations are so constituted that the burden of work falls on a small group, which inevitably finds itself making decisions, and for one reason or another consults less and less with the general body. Of course, the expansion of The American Psychoanalytic Association has made some degree of centralization expedient, but, with foresight, some of its leaders sense the danger of isolation arising from such a process and are trying to combat it.

“It has been the preoccupation of the Executive Council how best to reduce this kind of development to a minimum. Out of this grew the suggestion to re-establish the Bulletin. A great need was felt for a medium of communication among the various elements of the Association, a medium through which the individual members, Societies and Institutes, may keep in touch with each other to learn what is going on psychoanalytically in other parts of the country; a medium through which the elected leaders may convey their ideas to the body at large and at the same time keep informed of the wishes of the grass roots. Such a medium is the new Bulletin.