From the Editor

As many people are aware, assembling a journal takes place over many months, the writing often having occurred well before publication. It was during this time that we were all impacted, some of us more directly than others, by the tragic events on September 11th.

Both Barbara Blasdel (the president of NCSPP) and I feel it is important to recognize and acknowledge the events of that fateful day in fort da. It has now been two weeks since the terrifying events took place, yet they are still fresh in the minds of many of us. There have been many words spoken and written, and yet not enough. The need to talk with and write to is palpable; through it we attempt to digest this experience and reconstitute ourselves. Through all of it, we both can and cannot find words, we stumble, fall into silence stunned, bumping into both our own and a collective sense of trauma. We struggle to find the right words to describe and contain the unimaginable, and yet, as our work shows us, all we have in many ways is our capacity to talk and converse together.

Our thoughts and hearts go out to all of you who have lost friends and loved ones, and I can only hope that within our community and the larger community of humankind that we can find the right way to talk, be together and ultimately find the path of right action.

When I first became involved in fort da, I was immediately struck by the passion and audacity of its editorial board members. This was no timid family, the hopes and expectations were high, and the chemistry between its members generated an aliveness that both excited and inspired me. This was, it seemed to me, what psychoanalytic writing should evoke, a passionate and unpredictable response from those touched by it.

Henry James in The Middle Years wrote, “We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” I was struck in reading this piece how James had managed to speak not onl