Editorial

I come to write this editorial experiencing a mixture of emotions, knowing that it will be my last as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal. I joined the editorial team five years ago as an Assistant Editor, when my life looked very different, and I feel lucky that in the first few years I had the time and space to really immerse myself in the work. There have been many happy changes in my life since then, and while I continue to find my work at the Journal a privilege and a pleasure, I have less time and mental energy to dedicate to it than I would like. The time feels right to step aside and allow others to carry forward the work I’ve been a part of, but I look forward to remaining connected to the Journal and seeing how it develops in the coming years. I am very pleased that Lucy Mills, who I have worked with at the Journal over the last two and a half years, will be taking over as Editor-in-Chief.

The broad theme for this issue is sexuality and the body, following the ACP conference in June 2025 titled ‘Sexuality through a modern lens’. Five of the papers within this edition derive from presentations given at the conference, with a further three looking at presentations that may have links to the repression of sexuality and are expressed, to an extent, through the body – gender dysphoria and hikikomori.

Last year’s ACP conference set out to ‘focus on sexuality and its various expressions and manifestations – inside and outside the consulting room – as well as the individual and cultural changes within contemporary society’ (Association of Child Psychotherapists, 2025, p. 1). To me, this felt both a bold choice and the right choice. As the first fully ‘in person’ conference since the Covid-19 pandemic, the mixture of excitement and nervousness this evoked was somehow mirrored, and then further heightened by what felt like quite a ‘flash’ central London location. Referenced both in the conference programme, and in many of the presentations given on the day, is the centrali