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This journal, like the community and the field it represents, is continually evolving. Psychoanalysis is a rich and varied endeavor that has learned, often through trial and error, it needs to respond to changes in the environment in which it is practiced. As editors of this journal, and at the start of its 12th year of publication, we felt it was time for us to respond to the shifting clinical, theoretical, social, and cultural dimensions in which we live and work. The new title of the journal—Psychoanalysis, Self and Context—reflects this evolution.
As psychoanalysts we have become sensitive to the contexts in which we practice, to the way in which both the analyst and the patient, and their shared reality, play out in social, cultural, and political settings that shape what happens in the analytic hour. Self psychology has similarly evolved and today represents many points of view: Kohutian and post-Kohutian, complexity theory and dynamic systems, intersubjectivity and relational approaches. There is no single “self psychology” just as there is no single way of practicing psychoanalysis. The new title of the journal seeks to reflect the myriad ways in which contemporary self psychologists define themselves and the work they do.
At the same time, in the broader field of psychoanalysis, the historical definitions and distinctions that used to define theory and practice no longer hold as they once did. There is an ever increasing intermixing of viewpoints and a push toward integrative rather than segmented thinking. This is in part a natural evolution of our field and in part a response to the mental health environment as a whole. Psychoanalysis can ill afford sectarian thinking at a time when the value of open-ended therapy of every kind is challenged and undermined.
Our journal seeks to represent and welcomes a wide spectrum of psychoanalytic viewpoints. We believe there is much to be learned from the intersection of different approaches. At the same time, we continu