Because this is the first number of their new journal the authors feel it is their duty to explain the objectives and principles that will guide their editorial policy. Since there is such disagreement, they feel justified in raising the question: 'what do we mean by psychoanalysis?'. They believe psychoanalysis is the science founded by Freud and grounded in his fundamental discoveries of the 'subconscious', repression, resistance, transference, and the importance of childhood experiences. They emphasize that they do not believe psychoanalysis should be a 'movement' directed by a 'bureaucracy' and based on unchallengeable doctrines. (One wonders whom they have in mind.) Rather, they view it as a science which develops as a result of new clinical findings, and revises its theories under the influence of new philosophic positions and the contributions of other sciences.