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It is with the greatest sadness that I write this editorial following the death of Dana Birksted-Breen, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (2007–2022), on 1 June 2024.
Through her 15 years of editing the International Journal as well as the New Library of Psychoanalysis (2000–2010), Dana Birksted-Breen became arguably the most experienced and influential psychoanalytic editor in the world. Self-effacing almost to a fault, she was particularly generous in promoting others, especially in helping authors to improve their submissions to a standard of which they hadn’t realised they were capable. Her own papers were marked by a special blend of creative imagination and sensitivity allied with an encyclopaedic grasp of the theories of classical and contemporary psychoanalysis. This is a sad day for the Journal and her colleagues, past and present, to whom she dedicated so much attention and affection. Writing personally, I can say without any doubt that I owe my own editorial development in very large part to Dana. My experience will be shared by many.
I wish to pay tribute to the sheer quality and quantity of Dana’s contribution to the International Journal. As a board member, she used to be the Book Review Editor, then she become the joint Editor-in-Chief with Robert Michels for five years, before she went on to become the sole Editor-in-Chief, a role which she held for 10 years. So all in all, the journal benefited from Dana as Editor for 15 years. This is quite an amazing achievement. Under her stewardship, the Journal continued to set the highest standards, but also inquired into all sorts of new trends within psychoanalysis, and particularly lived up to its name of being international. Dana was always keen to explore and encourage writing from many different areas of the world in all sorts of different psychoanalytic dialects. Indeed, translation was at the core of her interests, the subject of translation, in its very many ramifications an