Editorial

By the time this issue appears it will be nearly eight years since I took over the editorship of The Journal from Michael Fordham. Five years later publication became quarterly, which coincided with Judith Hubback becoming joint editor. It has been a period of fruitful collaboration upon which I shall look back with pleasure. During the time under consideration all the editorial staff have enjoyed the most able and unswerving support of our office manager, James Seddon, who has kept in liaison with helpers in the United States and elsewhere. To all of these and many other friends and supporters, too numerous to mention, I extend my thanks as I hand back my office to the publishers, The Society of Analytical Psychology, London. As from April 1979 issue Judith Hubback will continue as sole editor. I am confident that she will go on to receive the support that she and I have been getting from our staff, subscribers and contributors.

The interaction between editor and reader is of a subtle quality, measurable to some slight extent by the circulation figure which, throughout the period in question, has remained satisfactory. One hope which was not been fulfilled was that of getting more correspondence going in the form of critical comments on published articles to which the author could reply in the next issue. Criticism, if voiced, is always a good thing since, in the end, it brings together opposing points of view. But even letters not necessarily intended for publication, criticising the contents of The Journal over a period, are much better than comments or rumours, justified or not, to which the editor cannot reply. Detailed criticism is especially valuable and has always been answered fully.

One criticism which has always been levelled at The Journal over the years is that its contents are off the mainstream of Jungian thought, focusing too much on clinical details characteristic of ‘London’. This is both true as well as specious: true in that we have a declared clin