Editorial

The publication of this first issue of ‘Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy’ brings to fruition the hopes and endeavours of many of the founder members of the Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the National Health Service (A.P.P.). The Association was established in May 1981 to provide a means by which psychoanalytic psychotherapists working in the N.H.S. could share their experiences and discuss problems encountered in conducting their clinical work, teaching responsibilities and liaison with other disciplines.

Special teaching courses and conferences have been organised to promote these aims but from the earliest stages the members of the A.P.P. council were investigating the possibility of starting a Journal. This was because a Journal would be able to stimulate interest in and provide a medium for the exchange of information about the work being undertaken. In addition, there had never been such a Journal published in this country.

Plans for a Journal went ahead in 1982 and at the end of 1983 the present Editor was appointed to create a new Journal which would be specifically for psychoanalytic psychotherapists to communicate their work. This work is very wide-ranging and includes individual, group, marital and family work which is based on an application of the psychoanalytic approach. There are many who work in relation to a specific group of patients such as children or the elderly; others work in relation to types of disorder such as psychosis, subnormality, forensic problems and addictions. It is to provide a publication which will collect together contributions from all such areas that the A.P.P. is launching this Journal and the contents of this first issue includes papers on many of them.

The Editorial Board and Editor aim to encourage contributions from analytical psychotherapists at any stage of their training. Cases currently in supervision which illustrate certain technical or theoretical problems of this work could be submitted for publication an