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In this issue we address Empathy, a topic of increasing interest — and no small degree of uncertainty. Looked at from the standpoint of our publication plans for the four issues during the year, Empathy and Regression (Issue 1) represent subjects central to current psychoanalytic study. Each offers opportunities for advances in theory and clinical practice. Commentaries on John Gedo's “Beyond Interpretation” (Issue 2) presented essays stimulated by an extended integrated contribution of a single author. Infant Research: The Dawn of Awareness (Issue 4) will offer the reader information and new perspectives — sometimes startling — derived from an area of investigation on the periphery of our field.
Both Empathy and Regression deal with problems that have a long history in psychoanalytic thinking. Regression, as we recognize from our survey, has been studied from one or another aspect almost continuously in the work of Freud and later analysts. The history of empathy is different. Freud raised questions about the nature of perception between analyst and analysand, but only recently has there been a systematic exploration of this concept on a broad scale. We are delighted to contribute to this evocative inquiry into the nature of the deepest communication between one human being and another — an inquiry both timely and timeless.