Editorial

For this issue of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy we focus on two important conferences. Firstly, we publish two papers submitted (and peer-reviewed in the usual way) by Garelick and Taylor. These are from talks given at two linked conference days in March 1997 devoted to the implications of the then newly-published Department of Health Review of Psychotherapy Services. We asked Nicholas Temple to provide some context by outlining the main content and some of the implications of this Review, which we hope will be helpful for those less familiar with this document and its potentially far-reaching consequences, both positive and negative. Taylor's paper focuses thoughtfully on the language and tone of the Review, which, he argues, reveals some unhelpfully moralistic, superego aspects of it, which somewhat distorts its more constructive aspects. Garelick, rather than addressing the content of the Review directly, addresses some of the pressures, conscious and unconscious, that might prompt such repeated, radical investigations of, and sometimes attacks on, our work in psychotherapy departments. He is intrigued by the huge furore often generated by what he elegantly shows is such a relatively tiny and inexpensive branch of the Health Service.

In the second section of this issue, we took the decision to put aside our usual format, in order to publish the proceedings of the Mind's Eye conference, held at Moorfields Hospital last October. The background to this conference is as follows. Funded by the Inman Trust of the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, and held at the Tavistock Clinic, a short-term pilot seminar for professionals working with eye disorders was led by Alexis Brook, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, Andrew Elder, consultant in general practice and primary care, and Sotiris Zalidis, general practitioner and, like Andrew Elder, a member of the Balint Society. Seminar members included Richard Wormald, consultant ophthalmologist, Liz Middleton, orthoptist, and Mandy O'Kee