Editorial

With this issue (Volume 7 No. 3, 1993), my period as Editor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy comes to an end. I feel very proud to have been given the opportunity to play a part in its development and growth.

When I look back to my Opening Editorial (Volume 3 Number 3, 1988), I notice that I was preoccupied with the context in which psychotherapy in the public sector was trying to establish itself; and I felt concerned at the cuts that were threatening some key services. From the perspective of where we are today, it is now clear that we were seeing the beginning of radical, far-reaching, and disturbing changes in the Health Service, which now, more than ever, put pressure on beleaguered psychotherapy services. At the same time, psychotherapy is more popular than ever before (despite the recent efforts of some journalists to discredit it), both with the public at large and with the medical profession. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is more recognised in the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the other influential bodies. So that while all vulnerable services with long-term aims are under real threat, there is a sense of a greater public and professional awareness of why it is worth fighting for. While the pressures are in many ways greater, the morale is higher than I think it was in 1987.

I hope that by continued insistence on high-quality papers and an emphasis on good clinical work, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy has played its part in this change, and I hope I can therefore feel I have been able to make a small, but important, contribution to psychotherapy in the public services, despite these troubled times.

Production of a Journal is a team effort, and I could not have achieved any-thing without the enthusiasm and support of the Editorial Board, past and present, David Bell, Marion Burgner, Denis Carpy, Peter Fonagy, Jane Milton, Bernard Roberts, Joan Schachter, Jon Sklar, Judith Trowell, Sally Weintrobe, and our editorial assistant, Ann Jameson. I would especially li