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I feel honored that many years after having served as editor of this journal, I was invited by the current editors, Jennifer I. Downey and César A. Alfonso, to prepare the introduction to the second of two anniversary issues recognizing the 50th year of the journal's publication. Journal editors face the necessary but troublesome task of selecting and rejecting submissions. How much more trying it must be to select previously published articles for anniversary issues! The editors curated the current selection from among 2,000 papers, choosing those “deemed pioneering, thought provoking, clinically relevant and to have advanced the field in meaningful ways.” Downey, Alfonso, and their panel of reviewers avoid telling us these are the “best” articles.
Over the years, the journal has shifted and evolved. From its origins as a journal of psychoanalysis to a journal of both psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychiatry, to its current iteration as a journal simply named Psychodynamic Psychiatry, the journal has proclaimed its immediacy to the ever-changing landscape that scientific progress demands. An appreciation of this evolution is clearly in order.
In 2000, when I was handed the editorial reins of the journal by my esteemed predecessor Jules Bemporad, we mostly lived in a world of paper. When we met, Jules happily pointed to the cartons of manuscripts needing review, others already reviewed and needing to be rejected, others needing modification, and others needing acceptances sent. Daunted, I loaded the cartons into my car and set off for my editorial adventure. Drumming up good papers from among Academy members became a perennial task. Nudging authors to render so-so papers to levels of excellence was trying but always gratifying. Thankfully, others came in over the transom.
This issue, the second of the anniversary issues, begins with two papers on the general topic of education. Eric M. Plakun, a leader in psychiatric education, reminds us that in the last 20 years o