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On the initiative of the editorial board of this journal, a small group seminar took place in New York City, Friday January 5 (at the W.A. White Institute, from 2pm to 6pm) and Saturday January 6 1996 (at the home of one of the participants, from 10am to 5pm), with the aim of exploring new forms of creative exchange of psychoanalytic ideas on an international basis. This is actually one of the projects which our journal stands for and which five European members of the editorial board (U. Britt-Parment, M. Conci, T. Nystedt, C. Sjödin and J. Stensson) were able to experience by means of the contact and the reciprocal personal knowledge established, through the seminar, with the five American colleagues (M. Black, E. Ghent, B. Magid, S. Mitchell and V. Tate Angel) who were ready to accept the challenge. The level of dialogue and collaboration which ensued made such an initiative both very useful and rewarding to all participants.
At variance with the usual format of analytic events such as congresses in which papers are presented and seldom really discussed, or technical seminars centered around the work conducted, or supervised by a leading clinician, the atmosphere we were trying to create was quite different. Apart from the brief introductory remarks made by J. Stensson and the two cases presented—without relying on any written notes—by S. Mitchell (Friday) and J. Stensson (Saturday), the group easily adhered to the common agenda of trying to understand the societal and professional climate in which each of the participants works, and was free to explore the values and the priorities which the participants try to keep in mind in their clinical work and in their scientific activities.
A similar initiative was attempted by the editorial board in 1994, in the form of a seminar with a couple of leading researchers and clinicians in pediatrics and ph