Editorial

Writing an editorial will not be our usual practice, but from time to time we do want to share some of our thoughts with our readers. Launched in November, 1984, with the aim of complementing clinical and critical literature with articles on the wider cultural relations of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychology, Free Associations has sought to publish articles of sufficient depth to command respect in the various ‘parent’ fields from which they gather enlightenment. With our gaze fastened upon an interdisciplinary forum, we have found ourselves surprised by a curiously disarming experience: readers from across a spectrum of backgrounds and interests — all of whom wish our project well and, in some cases, have even contributed to it — seem likely to react very differently to the same article. In one case, reactions varied from great pleasure to wondering whether or not the article was a spoof.

Of course, it is a common experience that one will read only a portion of a journal to which he or she subscribes and that different people will pick out different articles in any issue for praise or for criticism. But we think the disparate responses in our case derive from far deeper roots and represent a less random array of intellectual, cultural and professional tastes. We believe that the problem lies at the heart of our project and represents at the same time both our difficulty and our greatest hope for our project.

To some extent we anticipated this problem in the editorial to the pilot issue: ‘The editors experienced some trepidation in selecting articles for this issue. Some readers may find particular juxtapositions strange and perhaps offputting … We believe that these possibilities (of bringing broader cultural and political traditions to a