Editorial

Gaia, Lovelock's name for the personification of Planet Earth, is seriously ill. As António Guterres (Secretary-General of the United Nations) put it, on opening the COP27 gathering of world leaders in Cairo on 7 November 2022, “Many of today's conflicts are linked with growing climate chaos […] Humanity has a choice: co-operate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact—or a Collective Suicide Pact”.

Guterres rightly points out that climate change is a major public health emergency. But another one is violence and this special issue of The International Journal of Forensic Psychotherapy (IJFP) presents contributions by colleagues to the thirtieth anniversary conference of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy (IAFP) held in London in May 2022 where the theme was “Violence as a public health emergency: preventing, treating and humanizing the dangerous mind”. There was such a wealth of talks from that riveting and relevant conference weekend that we couldn't accommodate them all in a single issue so you will have more to look forward to in next year's issue in July. The principal papers in this issue are also a tribute to our founder, Professor Estela V. Welldon, who has done so much to professionalise the field of forensic psychotherapy. Never has there been a more critical time for those of us involved in the field of forensic psychotherapy to make our voices heard.

In the last six years alone, we have witnessed alarming developments around the world, namely a rise in extreme nationalism, an increasingly large gap between the rich and the poor, both intra- and internationally, and a global pandemic which has stretched governments to breaking point, both politically and economically. Then there is the fighting in Syria, Ukraine, and over thirty-five armed conflicts in Africa. All these factors have led to a rise in violence worldwide, especially against children and women, who disproportionately suffered in pandemic lockdowns and always suffe