Editorial

War is the context for this issue of the International Journal. The world has been stunned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am writing this editorial in mid-April, but by the time this issue is published in June I would expect, sadly, that hostilities will still be ongoing.

I have asked Oleksandra Mirza and Igor Romanov of the Ukrainian psychoanalytic IPA study group to contribute a Letter From Ukraine, which you will find in this issue, in which they depict and reflect upon the catastrophe which has befallen them. Renate Kohlheimer, from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, has also written a Letter from Vienna. The original purpose was for her to speak to the international psychoanalytic community regarding the European Psychoanalytic Federation’s forthcoming July conference. Vienna, however, has found itself caught up in the frontline of rushing to the aid of Ukrainians since Austria is a neighbour of Ukraine, and that has meant Austrian psychoanalysts have been particularly involved in helping Ukrainian psychoanalysts and their families, many of whom have sought sanctuary in Vienna - so the war also figures in Renate’s Letter.

The Education Section committee of the International Journal has for some time been planning to publish a number of articles on the subject of war, inspired by Freud’s and Einstein’s correspondence on the subject. It had not been anticipated that a major European war would erupt imminently, though vicious wars have been waged alongside political violence without cease in various parts of the world in recent years - Syria, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Chechnya, Sudan, Yemen immediately spring to mind. The difference is that none of these conflicts are in psychoanalytic centres, so most of the psychoanalytic world has been protected by their geographical distance from suffering the direct impact of war. Ukraine, by contrast, has a very active psychoanalytic community, well in touch with many psychoanalysts worldwide, and particularly with the IPA.

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