The 75th Volume

This issue marks the beginning of the 75th year of continuous publication of the Journal. The first issue appeared in early 1920, when Ferenczi was President of the International Psychoanalytical Association and just as Freud was about to publish the first of his important 'turning-point' papers— Jenseits des Lustprinzips (Beyond the Pleasure Principle).

The idea of an official English-language journal had first been mooted at the Munich Congress in 1913, but it was not until after the 1914-18 war, and then only after the extraordinary efforts of Ernest Jones, that the idea came to fruition. Jones served as the first Editor, working under Freud's direction, and held the post for twenty years before being succeeded by James Strachey, in 1940. Strachey was in turn followed by Adrian Stephen in 1946; a triumvirate of Willi Hoffer, John Rickman and Clifford Scott in 1947; Hoffer in 1949; John D. Sutherland in 1960; Joseph Sandler in 1969; and Thomas Hayley in 1978. The present Editor joined Hayley in 1988 before taking sole charge last year.

Freud founded the Journal to provide a coherent on-going setting in which all those who were taking part in the growing body of psychoanalytic thought and research could enter into dialogue with one another. From the start it was clear that this dialogue should be international and, although the administration of the Journal quite soon became the responsibility of the British Society, an increasingly wide group of colleagues has come to make up the editorial group. They have seen fit to aim the Journal at being both the guardian of the psychoanalytic tradition and a liberal forum for the different points of view within psychoanalysis. As such, the Journal has successfully represented international psychoanalysis and in doing so has established a unique identity among the publications in our field. The Journal has enjoyed the goodwill and co-operation of many colleagues, who advise, write and read it, and the subscribers now nu