Editorial

This issue of the Journal is a ‘special’ issue not because it focuses exclusively on a particular topic, but because it is dedicated to a very special colleague, Richard Lucas, OBE, who died on 28 July 2008. Some of the papers (by Evans, Garelick, Heller, Minne, Steiner and Harland, and Sohn) are modified versions of papers given at a conference that celebrated Richard's work and was organized by the Institute of Psychoanalysis and supported by the APP and the Royal College of Psychiatrists – organizations that Richard was involved in during his career. We are also pleased to include other papers in this issue that were not presented at this conference, but which resonate with the kind of application of psychoanalytic ideas that I think Richard would have enthusiastically supported and engaged with (the papers by Ivey, Darnley et al., and Martindale and Smith).

Throughout his career, Richard was passionate about, and committed to, the application of psychoanalysis in general psychiatry in the NHS. He was one of the founding members of the Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (APP) and supportive of this Journal. He made seminal contributions to work with psychotic patients, introducing the understanding of the ‘psychotic wavelength’, as well as papers on puerperal and manic depressive states. Richard's unwavering belief that psychoanalysis had a vital contribution to make to the care of psychotic patients in particular is unfortunately not reflected in the NICE recommendations for schizophrenia.

Liz Kuipers, who chaired the NICE Guideline Development Group for schizophrenia, has written a very helpful overview for this Journal of the state of play in this domain. Although these guidelines make no reference to psychoanalytic interventions, reading the papers in this issue only serves to emphasize the importance of keeping alive the contribution that psychoanalytic ideas can make to clinical work in this field, not least in helping the staff caring for psychotic