Editorial

This is another general edition of the Journal which brings together six papers covering a wealth of themes and revealing a multiplicity of approaches and interests. We hope that the balance between clinical practice, theory and research provides a rewarding read. We hope too that these articles, and the range of views expressed here, will help to stimulate on-going debate on the topics covered – both in the pages of the Journal and beyond – and would like to encourage you to write in with your views.

The issue opens with two papers which direct our attention to the vital function of ‘the third’. Perhaps it is not entirely coincidental that both also concern topics about which we receive relatively few papers but that are undeniably central to our work as child psychotherapists. The first of these, written by Monica Lanyado, takes us directly into the heart of the supervisory relationship and examines in detail the chain of transference by which the dynamics between therapist and child patient make an impact on the supervisor in ways that, once understood, can help produce a sea change between the two that moves the treatment forward. Lanyado’s focus is on critical emotional events within the child–therapist interaction, ‘moments of meeting’ (Stern et al., 1998). Such moments are often infused with projections of despair or impasse and Lanyado argues that, through expression, containment and digestion within the supervisory process, these can be transformed into moments of hope. She draws on literature about trauma to elucidate the significance of hope in helping children recover from an abusive start and illustrates the theme with engaging accounts of her supervision of key episodes within the psychotherapies of two distressed young girls who both cause their therapists powerful emotional reactions which the therapists then each bring to supervision. For many of us the psychoanalytic perspective we endeavour to offer in our supervision of others will be a core part