Editorial

In producing the present edition we began with the aim of collecting together a number of papers that would reflect the international scope of the journal, in terms of both its readership and its authors. In the event we have also achieved a second unexpected but very welcome outcome, namely to produce an edition that honours the work of Frances Tustin.

The first four papers all pay tribute to the enduring influence of her work. Maiello's paper, of course, was the winner of the First International Frances Tustin Memorial Prize in 1997 - a memorial established by Judith and Theodore Mitrani in Los Angeles. Maiello draws on and extends the implications of Tustin's ideas about the importance of trauma in the aetiology of autism. Houzel, who worked closely with Tustin, develops another aspect of her thinking in his paper in which he seeks to redress the balance which he feels has over-emphasized the importance of Oedipal rivalry as against sibling rivalry. Fonseca and colleagues illustrate the degree of shared understanding that there can now be among analysts about autistic states and how Tustin's work with psychogenic autism may be extended to work with brain-damaged autistic children. Mori, in her paper, like Maiello, also emphasizes the importance of trauma as an aetiological factor in autism, and movingly shows how she was able to begin to make contact with her patient.

The papers are an impressive illustration of the breadth of Tustin's ideas. These have proved far-reaching in their implications, not only for our understanding of the genesis of autistic states, but also for our appreciation of the role played by autistic enclaves in more neurotic patients (see, for example, Mitrani, 2001). As these papers show, they have also reached far geographically: from South America to the opposite side of the world in Japan. Tustin would have been enormously heartened to see how her work has flourished in this way. She was of course, it should be added, an Honorary Member of