Editor's Comments

Sometimes the Journal opens with a current clinical dilemma - most directly, perhaps, in our Clinical Commentaries, which take us straight into the here-and-now of the consulting room. Sometimes, as here, the historical and conceptual basis of our work is front and centre stage. The first three papers in this issue, within our Clinical Practice and Theory strand, address significant developments in Kleinian, Winnicottian and Lacanian thinking respectively.

The first two contributions revisit classic papers. Bob Hinshelwood investigates Hanna Segal's modification of her conceptualization of symbolic equation and symbolic representation in the light of Bion's development of the theory of container/contained. Hinshelwood scrupulously charts Segal's discussion of different types of projective identification ‘as the origin of the symbolic equation’, noting that questions of fragmentation, the role of aggression, and the representation of internal objects remain to be clarified. As he says, ‘the theory requires modifications to iron out the issues that currently flaw this powerful clinical tool’. Next, Chris Brogan considers Winnicott's work on the value of depression: ‘[b]y stating that depression has value, Winnicott challenges the view that depression is an enemy which has to be defeated… Instead he states that there is a paradox: on the one hand depression has value, and on the other it can cause suicide and intense suffering.’ Brogan carefully places Winnicott's discussion of depression alongside Klein's and Freud's, remaining inward with Winnicott's ‘startling’ idea that clinicians ‘use the patient's depression to deal with our own depression’.

Joachim Cauwe and Stijn Vanheule then address the question of transference in psychosis from a Lacanian perspective, noting the evolution in Lacan's thinking from the classical focus on the theory of foreclosure to his later discussion of experiences beyond the limits of language. ‘Transference in psychosis’, they write, ‘remai