Editor's Introduction

As a tribute to Charles Brenner, who gave so much to The Psychoanalytic Quarterly over the years, we begin this issue with a special feature, presenting Dr. Brenner in his own words. Specifically, we have brought together a personal memoir, on which he was working at the time of his death, and a transcript of a memorable interview, conducted by Robert Michels, that Dr. Brenner gave to the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine on the occasion of the publication of his final book, Psychoanalysis or Mind and Meaning (2006, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly).

In early 2007, Dr. Brenner contacted us about his memoir, asking if we might be interested in publishing it. In editing it now, we began with that manuscript, dated February 26, 2007, and while we have done very little to alter his own words, we have trimmed that draft a bit and added a few brief sections from earlier drafts that were made available to us by his niece, Mary Brown. Ms. Brown has worked closely with me and with our Managing Editor, Gina Atkinson. I am grateful to both of them for their efforts to see Dr. Brenner's memoir through to publication. I hope you will recognize in Dr. Brenner's memoir a familiar voice from the literature but in a distinctly personal vein. This is Charlie telling a story, as he did so often.

But if you hear him telling a story in the memoir, in the interview you will hear the cadence of his familiar speech patterns—hear him thinking out loud—developing those stories, as he responds to Dr. Michels's challenging questions. Here, especially, we have resisted the temptation to correct the transcript, except in spots where Dr. Brenner's intent might have been unclear without the inflections of his speaking voice. We have even left the occasional slip of the tongue to preserve the aliveness and spontaneity of the interview. If you would like a real treat, listen to the interview itself on our website () or on the APM website ().

At the end of this issue, we feat