Editorial

The content of a single issue of the Journal does not often give rise to editorial comment. However, the series of original papers in this particular issue provides an opportunity to break the customary silence. It is hoped that the reader, confronted by a diverse range of subjects and a variety of styles and approaches, may find the following general observations helpful both by way of introduction and as an attempt at a synthesis.

We are fortunate in being able to present Fordham's masterly contribution as the opening paper, as this will be an invaluable source of reference for the present and future generations of analytical psychologists. It is hard to see how any student of the subject will be able to dispense with this review, which has two great merits so often lacking in papers submitted for publication to the Journal: the first is that Fordham makes a particular point of remaining within the chronological order of Jung's developing thoughts and thus avoids picking out quotations at random from Jung's writings in order to support his thesis, as many writers are prone to do; the second is that he is exceptionally meticulous in making it clear when he is offering his own comments on Jung's statements and when he is accounting for apparent discrepancies and/or contradictions.

In other words he has succeeded in combining or reconciling his own contribution with the very important topic of transference in the evolution of Jung's work. This includes the controversial meaning of ‘infantile’ when the adjective is applied to ‘components of the self or ‘roots of the transference’. The author concludes that further study is required in order to discover what Jung meant by ‘infantile’. There is no doubt in my mind that the word had a pejorative ring when Jung applied it to patients. The outcome of further studies which Fordham seems to recommend must depend to some extent on whether the patient is, or was, seen five times a week on the couch, or twice a week face to face