Editorial

This is the last issue where Viviane Green will act as Co-Editor before handing over to Anne Hurley and Teresa Bailey. This transition coincides with a new cover design for the Journal, which we hope that the readership will like.

We have been very pleased that the Journal has reflected the growing research activity carried out both by our immediate profession and by allied professionals. It has also been a personal pleasure for the outgoing Co-Editor that we have published a number of articles (including Hart's in this issue), which bring alive the links between psychoanalytic understanding and neuroscience. The Journal, in conjunction with the ACP Research Committee, is currently preparing for a special Research Edition. We know that our readership is still keenly interested in reading about detailed clinical cases and we continue to see this as a central part of our publication. To this end, we would like to encourage a greater number of these submissions and, if potential authors are concerned about issues of confidentiality etc., the editors can always be contacted to help think through the issues.

The edition opens with two clinical articles: the first is an account of intensive clinical work with an adolescent with anorexia and the second concerns once-weekly therapy with a young child with pervasive developmental disorder. Mary Brady's article ‘Invisibility and insubstantiality in an anorexic adolescent: phenomenology and dynamics’ is a captivating description of three-times-weekly analytic work with Clare. Her primitive defences against separation and differentiation, and her efforts to render her sexuality invisible slowly give way to a more substantial capacity to bear pain, frustration and independence. It is a testament to the efficacy of intensive treatment and may provide welcome relief to those in the readership who are working in situations where there are growing constraints on what help can be offered in the public sector.

It is always a challenge t