Editorial

As 2015 draws to a close it is comforting to reflect that despite the relentless economic pressures on the public sector and demands to justify the existence of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, psychoanalytic thinking and practice continue to grow in this domain as is evident by the diverse papers in this issue. All of the authors who have contributed to this issue demonstrate a willingness in the work they describe towards adaption, flexibility and dialogue with other disciplines, without fear of losing the core psychoanalytic principles from which their work originates. This combination of openness, authenticity and resilience allows such work to flourish in harsh climates.

Stephen Briggs, Monique Maxwell and Amanda Keenan set the scene with their paper ‘Working with the complexities of adolescent mental health problems: applying Time-limited Adolescent Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (TAPP)’. TAPP is an excellent example of a psychoanalytically informed therapy that has been specifically developed for a particular patient population (adolescents) in a NHS mental health setting (a child and adolescent mental health service). Its focused and time-limited nature not only satisfies the exigencies of its publically funded setting, but is also consistent with a psychoanalytic approach to psychic development and the vicissitudes of adolescence.

In their paper ‘Burnout-or heartburn? A psychoanalytic view on staff burnout in the context of service transformation in a crisis service in Leeds’, Anuradha Menon and her colleagues provide evidence for the benefits of a psychoanalytic approach within acute psychiatric services in times of re-organisation. They show how indices of staff burnout increased following service transformation, and how a psychoanalytically-informed reflective practice group might mitigate against some of the stressors that contribute to burnout. For such work to be effective the psychoanalytic clinician must be prepared to occupy the uneasy position of the part