Guest Editorial

Anna Freud's death on 9 October 1982 brought to a close the distinguished career of one of the great scientific leaders of our time, and one whose impact and influence will continue to be felt as long as a science of the mind survives. Much has been said and written in the past months about the woman and her work, some of it revelatory in the cumulative picture of the breadth of her interests and the many-sidedness of her personality.

The personality is as important as the work; indeed, like her father's, it is inseparable from it. Both father and daughter shared the same rigorous honesty and dedication to the pursuit of truth. If the present collection of papers which make up this Memorial Issue stress the work rather than the personality that informed and inspired it, few people are likely, on that account, to imagine that the work was somehow self-generating or grew outside the context of an intelligence unique in its sense and sensibility.

The present issue attempts to do no more than reflect something of Anna Freud's interests and contributions to psychoanalysis and related fields; but it makes no attempt to be inclusive. In the nature of things, it does not generally seek to deal with any of these matters in depth. An adequate attempt to bring together the diversity of her interests or the significance of her contributions, whether for the professional worker, the interested scientist, or the man in the street, is a matter for the future—for extended industry, protracted study, and sustained and disciplined thinking. And the kind of detachment it demands is that of dispassion born of time to take stock. That time is not yet.

In any case, there were practical reasons why we could not, in the present issue, bring together a number of interim assessments which might, together, have purported to give a provisional global view of Anna Freud's work. A number of key papers, written for various memorial meetings by people who knew well the advances she had made i