Editorial

In early April this year, shortly before writing this editorial, the paper copy of 37-04 was delivered (4 months after the cover month of December). Upon receipt, several readers were prompted to write and share their concerns about the first paragraph of the editorial of that special issue entitled ‘Time to (re)-integrate Dissociation into Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy’. Writing in the first 10 days after the terrorist attack on Israel, Dr Shahar had described some impressions of the population’s response and his role providing psychological first aid. The intention was to add context to the special issue by providing a brief personal account of current clinical experience of dissociative responses to a trauma of which the readership would be very aware. Our correspondents were concerned that in providing this context the editorial did not comment on the broader situation in Gaza, which had become much worse by the time the paper copy of the journal was delivered.

We refute any suggestion that this was a deliberate and calculated decision to represent the discourse of the Israeli government or a Zionist perspective. However, we do recognise that the editorial made no mention of any context to the horrific attack of 7/10/23, such as the occupations of Gaza, the blockade or the illegal settler colonialism (Albanese, 2022). Nor was there any mention of the subsequent Palestinian deaths, which have now mounted to at least 34,622 and 77,867 injuries (OCHA, 2024). Kemp (2021, p. 37) argues that institutions such as this journal ‘have a responsibility to include in their reflections the constructive exercise of their public influence both in general terms and particularly in regard to the subjugation of the Palestinian people’. To this end, we would welcome the submission of articles that address these issues within an applied psychoanalytic framework.

We open this issue with an article entitled ‘Evaluating the 20-day Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) training programme: a