Editorial

The idea for putting together an edition of the Journal themed around research was first suggested by Charlotte Jarvis and Sue Kegerreis of the ACP research committee last year and so it is a great pleasure to present this special issue. Many of our readers, especially those working in the public sector, now have to justify the effectiveness of psychotherapy and so the expansion of the evidence base for child psychotherapy is increasingly necessary. We hope that this edition will make a small contribution towards the growing research evidence which points to the efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In addition, we hope it will inspire greater interest in research activity, including but not restricted to the single case study which has traditionally been the methodology of preference within the child psychotherapy profession.

The first article by Midgley and Kennedy opens this edition of the Journal in a broad way as it takes a careful and critical look at all the current research evidence for the effectiveness of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic child and adolescent psychotherapy. Their article builds on the systematic review which was conducted by Kennedy in 2004 to include the latest research findings. Their comprehensive and methodical search strategy was successful in identifying a total of 34 studies which they then categorised in terms of a hierarchy of evidence of therapeutic effectiveness. The strength of their article lies not only in their critical evaluation of the studies presented but also in their illuminating appraisal of research methodologies and the insight they provide into the assumptions that go along with the idea of a ‘hierarchy of evidence’. Despite the shortcomings which they describe in the design of some of the research, including size of sample and absence of control groups, the review indicates that there is increasing evidence to suggest the effectiveness of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children and adolescents across a range