Editorial

On receiving a journal or on selecting a new book to read, one might thumb through the work to note which article first catches one's interest. Usually one might then glance a second time and spend a moment on reading select passages with the intent of returning to the article when time prevails to sit down to quietly read. As you begin to read this editorial you will be glancing through this issue with my insights as to what it provides for our work as psychoanalysts. It differs from the others because it is not theme oriented but rather topically driven. The cohesion of this issue of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis comes from the fact that each article attends to a situation which is currently applicable to clinical situations in our varied practices.

Our work as psychoanalysts has many dimensions which I believe this issue of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis reflects. Joyce McDougall's article Sexual Identity, Trauma and Creativity describes the underpinnings of creative potential which involves both internal and external factors that cultivate one's creative resources. McDougall addresses an important concept that the healthy part of the personality allows the creative individual to create and project one's imagination into words or art. The clinical material McDougall discusses in her article reminded me of my experiences in my practice with actors and writers who were initially unsure of the psychoanalytic process and its effect on their creativity. I noticed that the thought processes of depressed patients were slower and as the depression lifted the thoughts were more readily available and the capability to write reappeared. The psychoanalytic process became a “liberating experience” as the analysand was able once again to become even more uninhibited in “creative activity” than in daily life. McDougall's article explores the origins, inhibitions and internal phenomena that contribute to or hamper the aliveness of creative expression.

In Fei