Editors' Introduction

Everything, analysts are fond of saying, is grist for the mill. Yet since Freud first demonstrated that dreams were special, the royal road to an understanding of the unconscious, analysts have remained alert to the possibility that some mental productions may be more valuable than others in leading to the understanding of inner conflicts.

In this issue, three such phenomena are discussed in detail by three experienced clinicians. Dr. Marshall Edelson, in our lead paper, which inspired this issue of the Journal, thoughtfully describes how useful to an ongoing analysis the appearance of favorite film scenarios in the analytic content can be. Dr. Arlene K. Richards describes how a favorite joke can condense many meanings for an analytic patient. Dr. Arnold Z. Pfeffer contributes perhaps the first analytic paper on the clinical use of thought as trial action.

Dr. Edelson's searching study of technique exemplifies the presentation and close examination of clinical data that this Journal was founded to promote. We are especially pleased, therefore, to have three eminent clinicians as discussants for this paper: Dr. Nancy Olson, whose comments were first delivered at the paper's original presentation; Dr. Martin Silverman, whose previously published clinical material featuring the film Now Voyager is further elaborated upon by Dr. Edelson, and whose response to Dr. Edelson calls attention to issues of psychoanalytic clinical discourse; and Dr. Jacob Arlow, whose long-standing interest in film has recently been recognized by his selection as inaugural reviewer for the new Film Section of the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. Dr. Edelson's thoughtful response to the discussants includes some valuable comments on the sensitive problems raised by psychoanalytic case presentations. These will be of great interest to those colleagues who present or discuss clinical cases in public.

Dr. Sylvia Welsh contributes a vivid and well-written clinical case history describing the