Clinical Discussions

According to its stated aims the International Forum of Psychoanalysis will especially promote presentations of clinical material and discussions of psychoanalytic methods and transactions. In order to live up to our objective we wish to introduce a special section devoted to this field, starting with this issue. It is our hope that the section will become a forum for a more lively exchange of experiences, observations and ideas than what is usually found in psychoanalytic journals. We therefore renew our call for papers suitable for the kind of discussion presented below. The question of confidentiality has, of course, to be carefully solved.

While all kinds of responses to such case presentations will be welcome, it would be especially interesting if small groups, e.g. peer supervisory groups, or other groups meeting regularly or specially designed for this purpose, would devote themselves to discussing a presented clinical material and submit their reactions for publication. The last word in such a discussion will always be given to the original presenter. As the time between the appearance of the issues is fairly long, it might be an advantage if we could publish both the presentation, the group discussion or individual discussion and the response of the presenter in the same issue. We therefore invite groups and individual psychoanalysts interested in taking part in this kind of exchange to sign up by writing a letter to the editorial office (for address, see second cover page), stating if you wish to present a case material, receive a case presentation for discussion, or both.

In order to introduce this section we wish to present a clinical paper, which has not yet been discussed in the way suggested. It can therefore be used for this purpose by groups or individuals who are interested in the project. If we receive several responses, one or two of the most interesting ones will be selected for publication.

Roberta Shechter, who is presenting her work with a homos