Editorial

This is the last Editorial that I shall be writing, as my term of office ends in December 2004, and the next issue of the Journal will be largely produced by my co-editor and assistant editor, prior to them taking over full responsibility.

In many ways it is a particularly fitting number to have as my swan-song. It begins with a paper by my dear colleague and former co-editor, Hamish Canham, who died so tragically young and who would have been such an excellent editor of the Journal. He was also, of course, a particularly gifted clinician who was very committed to working with children who had suffered severe deprivation. This paper, originally given at an annual conference of the Association of Child Psychotherapists, is a fine example of his work and shows his patience, firmness and resilience in the face of a very difficult patient. It is the kind of patient that will be familiar to many child psychotherapists and Canham's paper will be greatly welcomed by those struggling with such cases.

I am also very pleased to be able to publish the next paper by Palacio-Espasa. In part because we have not previously featured his work although he has published very widely elsewhere, but also because of my own particular interest in parent - infant work. The present article was in fact held over from our Under-Fives edition because of shortage of space in that number. It also reflects the continuing development of the Journal's links with European colleagues, evidenced by an increasing number of papers from that area.

The growing international scope of the Journal is again a feature of the papers that follow. These are drawn from our 40th Birthday Conference which was generously sponsored by the publishers. It was a very successful and friendly event that prompted lively discussion and a thought-provoking exchange of views, and those who were unable to attend can now have the pleasure of reading the four presentations that we enjoyed. The first paper by Miller looks at the Journ