Editorial

This edition in part reflects the increasing preoccupation with formal research and outcome studies in relation to psychoanalytic child psychotherapy and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services more generally; it also once again highlights the international character of the profession and of the Journal, with contributions from Australia, Finland, Sweden and the UK. Two articles on outcome studies and research are followed by two very different articles with nevertheless a common theme of mother – baby relationships and trauma. Finally, we are extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to hear a vivid historical account of an experience of individual clinical supervision with Esther Bick, whose teaching and thinking have had such a profound influence on child psychotherapy and psychoanalytic understanding.

In the first paper, ‘A qualitative framework for evaluating clinical effectiveness in child psychotherapy’, Cathy Urwin comprehensively elaborates and discusses an outcome study for psychoanalytic child psychotherapy using a ‘framework for outcome monitoring operating under the umbrella of audit’; the study was carried out across a National Health Service area Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in a deprived and ethnically diverse inner city borough. The framework involves the use of a standardised form to record clearly defined ‘hopes and expectations’ about the outcome of treatment, together with standardised questionnaires to measure the child's functioning before and after treatment. Urwin clearly explains the methodology of the study, describes how the forms and questionnaires are used within the assessment and therapeutic process, and discusses the results. She also addresses a number of issues and questions in relation to how the use of such a framework fits with a psychoanalytic stance and approach. The article includes a vivid and dramatic case illustration involving a child with conduct disorder – a case which is of considerable clinical int