Editorial

I am delighted to announce the appointment of Ms Ana Flavia Badue to the role of Assistant Editor. Ana is a Cultural Anthropologist lecturing at two colleges of City University New York. She is undertaking her psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, NYC. She also brings previous publishing experience as both an assistant and guest editor, making her ideally qualified for this role.

We begin this issue with an article by Jeremy Clarke entitled ‘Code Gender. Are the British Psychoanalytic Council’s new professional standards trans-friendly? Yes, if we remember Money-Kyrle’s “facts of life” include a 4^th factor’. The paper addresses the complex topic of working psychoanalytically with gender identity issues in the context of the BPC’s new ‘Standards of Conduct, Practice and Ethics’ and the proposed bill to ban conversion practice that has been slowly moving towards legislation since 2018. Clarke draws on his experience as Deputy Chair, Memorandum of Understanding when he was asked to steer its response to the government consultation on a proposed ban. This provides invaluable context to the development of the BPC’s ‘Standard 5’.

But the paper does not only explore issues of professional conduct and legislation. Taking Money-Kyrle’s ‘Facts of Life’ as the basis for his discussion, Clarke describes how the heteronormative assumptions of psychoanalysis have the potential to be adopted for conversion practises. He proceeds to identify how this can be avoided in clinical practice. Firstly, through a discussion of John Steiner’s description of how the psychoanalytic treatment model has changed over time. Steiner’s fourth model is based on Money-Kyrle’s ‘Facts of Life’ but with realist revisions away from heteronormative assumptions. Secondly, Clarke describes Alessandra Lemma’s ‘Fourth Fact of Life’, the ‘inescapability of embodiment’. He sees this as complementary to Steiner’s fourth model, in which projective identification can be