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From the Editor:
In this issue the BJP publishes two letters about The College of Psychoanalysts - United Kingdom. One is from its President, Jacques China. One is from a critic of The College, Carola Thorpe. Opinion within the Editorial Board about publishing them has been strongly divided. The final decision has been mine as Editor, and in reaching my decision to publish, I have taken my colleagues' views carefully into account. I want to register them here.
My personal view about the letters derives at source from my commitment to ‘engagement with difference’, a phrase I used in my Editorial in BJP 19(4). The BJP is in a good position, in my view, to make an ongoing space for debate about professional and organizational dynamics and developments, be this about neutral or more sensitive matters. Both letters set out important terms of debate, and in my view the claims for publication outweigh the arguments against.
In favour of publication, in addition, has been the free speech argument in principle, along with the general point that publication of a letter does not imply editorial endorsement. It has also been argued that the BJP does owe it to its readers to air the discussion about The College in a way that allows individual psychoanalytic psychotherapists, whatever the slant of their training organizations, to come to a considered, well-informed view about whether The College is divisive, or is making a sincere attempt to achieve pluralism in a divided profession. The correspondence is a start; further commentaries could follow, unsolicited or commissioned.
Against publication, on the other hand, has been the view that the formation of The College is a contentious political matter which has the