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The Journal of Child Psychotherapy published between August 1995 and December 1996 a series of four special issues devoted to the commemoration of major thinkers in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, people whose work has been seminal for the development of child and adolescent psychotherapy in Britain and throughout the world. The issue of April 1996 commemorating the work of Michael Fordham comes after the 1995 issues devoted to Frances Tustin (August 1995) and Anna Freud (December 1995) and precedes that on the work of Winnicott (December 1996). In terms of the orientation of the training schools of the Association of Child Psychotherapy only Melanie Klein is absent. Perhaps her influence in Britain and on the development of child psychotherapy is taken as given by the editors of the Journal. If that is so, it is a loss, because what governs the style of these commemorative issues and makes them essential reading for current clinical practitioners is the sense in each case of the person that emerges. For there are contemporary archives, written for the most part by people who had direct contact with these founding fathers and mothers, and the issue on Fordham is no exception.
There is a tribute from James Astor, a personal response from Donald Meltzer, an account by Dorothy Davidson of the Jungian Child Analytical Training, and an interview with Gianna Williams on the development of infant observation at the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP). These are followed by a selection of clinical papers by British clinicians and members of the SAP, Elizabeth Urban, Jane Bunster, and Miranda Davies. Fordham's book, Children as Individuals (Fordham 1994), is reviewed by Elizabeth Urban, and finally there is a pair of contrasting reviews of Fordham's collected essays, Freud, Jung and Klein - the Fenceless Field (Fordham 1995); these are by Barry Proner, a member of SAP on the one hand, and by Viviane Green of the Anna Freud Centre on the other. The latter m