Fifteen Clinical Accounts of Psychoanalysis—A Further Invitation

This part of the Journal is devoted to fifteen papers arising from our wish to facilitate a greater degree of shared understanding of diversity and common ground in current psychoanalysis and the invitation we made to psychoanalysts to submit to us examples of the way they currently work (IJPA, 71:1). That invitation arose out of Dr Robert Wallerstein's address to the 36th International Psychoanalytical Congress in Rome and the discussion which it provoked. We requested those submitting papers to try 'to describe a period of work with a patient and the relevant background. Some detail of what patient and analyst actually said to each other should be included and what the analyst thought or felt at the time would be relevant. Theoretical discussion should be separated from the clinical account as much as possible … Discussion should try to show what the particular analyst means by analysing the transference or resistance, waiting for associations, making reconstructions etc … only case reports about patients seen in full psychoanalytical treatment, as defined within the psychoanalyst's local society, are eligible' (IJPA, 71:2).

In the event some 26 authors responded to the invitation made both in the Journal and by additional letters and promptings by the Joint Editors and the Regional Editors. The papers selected for publication are those that best fulfilled the requirement that the clinical account clearly describe a period of work in such a way that the reader could understand what the patient and psychoanalyst actually said to each other and what the psychoanalyst's reasons for his interventions were. We have included two cases where the patient was a child. Beyond these very broad criteria we have tried to be as unselective as possible and we offer these accounts as examples of the way psychoanalysis is being practised with no implication as to how we feel it should be.

The end result is fifteen papers. Three are from North America; three from South Ameri