Editorial

This November issue brings together a remarkably diverse group of papers. Re-reading them together they felt like an affirmation of the remarkable scope of the Journal's reach; that we have a specialist niche does not appear to constrain our authors' range of interest, or indeed limit their expertise. Whilst unusually for the Journal none of these is explicitly clinical in the sense of being grounded in a case study, I hope you will agree that they all - albeit from very different perspectives - can still inform our clinical practice.

The issue opens with Ann Addison's masterly exposition of the common ground that Jung and Bion both journeyed from - their respective indebtedness to Bergson in particular. ‘Jung's psychoid concept and Bion's proto-mental concept: a comparison' lays out the evidence for these parallels with an engaging straightforwardness. I have rarely found a discussion of these elusive conceptual areas so accessible and illuminating. There is here a clarity of thought and a feel for the essence of a concept that renders these abstractions fresh, palpable and pertinent.

Next is an absorbing, and beautifully illustrated, homage to a piece of hitherto neglected Jungian history - the life-story, including her significant role within Jung's Zurich community, of the American-born artist Mary Foote. Born three years earlier than Jung, Foote became a highly successful artist and society figure before, in her early 50s, moving to Zurich to study with Jung. Even as, in the most recent and comprehensive of Jung's biographies, Deirdre Bair afforded her some long overdue recognition, she acknowledged that Mary Foote's full significance may yet be unexplored and understated. This deficit, thanks to the patient and empathic researches of the author of this fascinating paper, Dr. Richard Trousdell, has now been made good.

On now to a very contemporary reflection on one of the classic papers of the psychoanalytic literature, Nina Coltart's ‘Slouching towards Bethlehem