Editorial

The last year of this millennium coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the setting up of the Association of Child Psychotherapists, and in this edition we mark the occasion by publishing a history of the association's evolution, followed by a selection of papers which, we hope, reflect the breadth, scope and quality of the work we undertake around the world.

We open with an article by three authors which describes the establishment and growth of the Association as well as giving a personal commentary on the experience of being an active member of an expanding profession. Dora Lush describes the emergence of the ACP from a sub-committee via a provisional association (‘non-medical’) to a fully fledged Association. Margaret Hurst takes up the account, focusing on the last decade from 1989 to 1999 where there has been an increasing professionalization of the ACP and its activities. Finally, Pat Radford gives a personal account, tinged with humour and exasperation, of her own participation in this journey.

The second paper, ‘Finding new clinical pathways in the changing world of district child psychotherapy’, takes the discussion forward. The author Alan Shuttleworth reflects on the need for hard thinking in order to take the achievements of child psychotherapy in the community over the last fifty years forward into the next millennium. While the author is describing the professional landscape in Great Britain, these changes can also be seen to be reflected in the profession around the world, as psychoanalytic psychotherapy responds to the need to change and adapt while remaining true to its core thinking. We hope this paper will promote a debate with overseas colleagues, and we would welcome comments from practitioners around the world, to contribute to an international picture which will then be published in a future edition.

The clinical section of the April edition opens with a paper which demonstrates how child psychotherapists have applied key concepts to new way