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This issue celebrates ten years of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, a journal that has played its own particular and valuable part in the recent evolution of psychodynamic thinking. The “panel” format, which has allowed the expression of diverse, and at times contradictory views, is not only unusual but also potentially creative, fostering dialogue out of which new ideas can emerge. The open-mindedness implicit in this approach, so it seems to me, necessarily arises from the empathic stance of self psychology to which developing theory Psychoanalytic Inquiry has contributed. My title, however, refers not only to this viewpoint but also to my invited task, which is to address the changes in psychotherapy in Australia over the last decade. The selection of theme is inevitably personal and focuses on a psychology of self.
Ideas can only grow in a cultural milieu. The character of a particular culture will influence the way in which those ideas will manifest themselves. The Freudian thesis, for example, had different forms in nineteenth-century Vienna, in Chicago in the nineteen-thirties, and in Paris in the sixties. The ideas upon which a psychotherapy is based must be related not only to an intellectual tradition but also to the culture in which it acts. In this way it will have a vitality which encourages originality and creativity. On the