Mission Statement

Another day during COVID. We each click on a link and enter virtual space. It is the end of summer, and the four of us convene on our separate screens across three time zones. Our creative project this early morning is to formulate a joint mission statement, and, in so doing, begin the process of articulating a shared vision for a journal that has shaped each of us in uniquely personal ways. After our first editorial meeting, followed by a single wine-soaked dinner in a socially-near pre-COVID New York City, we now see each other through little windows; torsos and heads, thoughts and ideas. We laugh. We share experiences. We listen. We argue about form and content, engaging deeply in conversation about the future of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic writing and, of course, our plans for the journal.

Each of us, in our own way, has been looking forward to this moment for years. Our interests and influences range from comparative psychoanalysis to culture and gender studies, from the philosophical to the sociopolitical, from psychic trauma and transformation to racial reckoning and reparation.

Writing the introduction to our first issue as co-editors is an opportunity to articulate what an honor and thrill it is to be trusted with the stewardship of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, to be recognized by our mentors and to introduce ourselves to friends, colleagues and readers as an editorial team with a statement of purpose and a mission to guide Dialogues into its fourth decade.

Relational psychoanalysis was built on radical inquiry, the courage to take risks, to challenge orthodoxy and normativity, questioning basic assumptions about analytic knowing, therapeutic action, and the complexity of the analytic endeavor. We are committed to extending and expanding that inquiry in Psychoanalytic Dialogues.

The early relationalists were trailblazers. Propelled by a confluence of social, political and intellectual forces and commitments, they upended the classical model, replacing positivis