Editorial

Welcome to the summer issue of the Journal! I open this, my first editorial, with huge thanks to my predecessor, Rachel Acheson, who put an enormous amount of hard work not only into this issue, but into the Journal as a whole over several years – from 2024 as Editor-in-Chief and before that as Assistant Editor and Research Digest Editor. Rachel’s contribution, her sharp eye for detail and rigorous thinking have been enormously valuable, and I am very grateful for all I have learned from her. Rachel was a passionate champion of the Journal and of research into our field; the editorial team hope to do our best to uphold this legacy going forwards.

The first paper in this issue offers a beautiful overture to the others that follow. Using the work of philosophers Deleuze and Guattari and their concept of the ‘ritornello’, Wainwright describes the ‘song’ of pre-verbal infants’ cooing and babbling, and how repeated sonic motifs come to create ‘an affective imprint of a caring presence that “sings back” in harmony’. Wainwright goes further, considering how these pre-verbal melodic patterns and the emotionality they carry might emerge in the consulting room, and provide a transitional space for communication – reaching patients and therapists at a level that the restrictive symbolic nature of language precludes. I am put in mind of McGilchrist who writes:

It is important to recognise that music does not symbolise emotional meaning, which would require that it be interpreted; it metaphorises it – ‘carries it over’ direct to our unconscious minds’ (McGilchrist, 2009, p. 96).

The next article describes an evaluation of the highly successful ‘Watch Me Play!’ approach, an intervention for families with young children up to eight years, developed by child psychotherapist Jenifer Wakelyn. The approach aims to encourage parents to observe and join in with their child’s play, to refrain from trying to direct, and to be open and receptive to the child’s spontaneity. The case examples