Editor's Statement to the Executive Council

For more than twenty years, I have appeared before this body biannually and have presented a report of the activities of the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board, and the Administrative Board of the Journal. My presentations in the main have been simple factual ones, deliberately presented in a low-key fashion and, if you will permit me to say so, in a dessicated style at variance with my personality. To those of you who know me, this hasn't been the real Jack Frosch. I say this style of presentation has deliberately been chosen because, a long time ago, it was felt that the Executive Council had so much on its agenda that we shouldn't rock the boat and load more on its already overburdened shoulders. Furthermore, it was in keeping with the decision I had made a long time ago that the Editor-in-Chief should not become involved in the politics of the Association, and perhaps this should equally be the case for the Editorial Board. To some extent, this has created a climate of asepsis which, although having its benefits, has also tended to shield the Executive Council from some of the crucial problems we on the Editorial Board have had to face. Aside from the fact that it has imposed an inhibiting effect upon me personally, under which I found myself chafing, a good deal has gotten lost which could communicate to you the extent to which all of us working on the Journal are concerned with the many gut problems confronting psychoanalysis today. Nor have I communicated to you the depth of thought and hard examination which the Editorial Board has invested in these gut problems over the years.

I intend therefore, today, which may be the next-to-last report I will make to this body as Editor-in-Chief, to share with you—in my own manner—some of the deep considerations which have concerned us—and concern American psychoanalysis today. The problem of where we are moving as a scientific body has been before this Council, more recently, with increasing emphasis. The Jou