Editorial

This issue contains two groups of papers each of which are on a particular theme although neither comprises what could properly be called a “symposium”.

On the first group Eileen Orford writes:

“The three papers on Assessment reflect the interest generated by a series of scientific meetings of the Association of Child Psychotherapists which took place in London in 1981 and were devoted to describing work with children and their families preliminary to a decision about treatment … The papers revealed notable differences as well as similarities between the approaches of the Tavistock and Hampstead Clinics. During the ensuing discussions it became clear that there was much interest in the different approaches to and views on this topic. It is with this in mind that the following papers are presented”.

Lisa Miller writes concerning the two papers in honour of Melanie Klein:

“In this year when the centenary of Melanie Klein's birth is being celebrated in many different places it seems appropriate to mark the occasion in the Journal. Rather than to embark on the large task of trying to assess her contribution and importance, now so widely disseminated and recognised, it seems in keeping with her work and aims to publish papers which look further afield, whose emphasis is on future development rather than on consummated achievement. With this in mind we hope to demonstrate in the two papers here presented that the thoughts generated by Melanie Klein's discoveries are still alive and growing “.

By a sad coincidence, plans for the commemorative papers on Melanie Klein were well advanced when news came of the death of Anna Freud, a figure of comparable stature in the history of child psychoanalysis, yet whose views were often sharply at variance with those of Melanie Klein. We begin the issue with a brief tribute to her memory from the pen of the present Chairman of the Association of Child Psychotherapists.

Finally, to round off a number in which reappraisals and commemorations fe