Editorial

After two special issues and extensive work on the part of our managing editor, Jane Turney and the Latin American authors, our June issue returns to our usual format, offering a selection of papers that specifically respond to clinical issues within the consulting room or expand beyond the personal to engage with enriching topics that affirm the vicissitudes of our analytic work.

In the opening paper, Susan Mizen's contribution introduces a detailed exploration of transference and countertransference dynamics in her paper, ‘The Self and alien self in psyche and soma’. Mizen challenges us to think about how analytical psychology is significantly enriched by a neuropsychoanalytic lens. Using a concise argument of neuroscience and Friston's ‘internal generative model’, she explores how narcissism, self-organization and self-agency are altered and expressed in both neurological and psychological disorders. Her clinical images help to illuminate and integrate concepts from neurology and neuroscience for those less familiar with this language. Finally, Mizen's explication of the projective defences of narcissistic patients with specific neurological disorders skilfully expands upon Jung's notion of the psychoid, or Bion's early mental states.

Oliver Dale's paper, ‘Self, ego and suicide’, addresses one of the most difficult but clinically significant topics of our day: suicide and parasuicidal behaviours. Supported by Jungian theory, specifically the relationship between the ego and the Self, Dale shares several meaningful clinical accounts, supported by a sound theoretical lens, that remind us of how individuation is not always achievable and that death is not always preventable. The significance here is that he challenges us to suspend our usual therapeutic lens of responsibility (focusing on ‘suicide prevention’) and invites us to become curious about an analytic omnipotence or ‘relentless hope’ that has been pressed upon us, for good reasons. Although his position may b