Editorial

Earlier this month Dana Amir, a member of this journal’s editorial board, received the Sigourney award. The Sigourney Award Trust, an independent non-profit organization, bestows annual awards in recognition of outstanding work that has advanced psychoanalytic principles. Professor Amir has received this award for her groundbreaking studies of the ways that trauma is conveyed through language. Her research into aspects of language such as word choice, tone, rhythm, and inflection used by perpetrators and victims has led her to encourage both clinicians and patients to focus more on the narrator than the narrative, to reveal the unique way that each story is structured. Amir has identified new routes for therapeutic intervention by mapping the interplay between dissociative and associative forces. She demonstrates that language can be both a symptom of trauma and a vehicle for healing. An example of this work was included in our Special Issue, ‘Time to (re-)integrate dissociation into psychoanalytic psychotherapy’. Her insights into the language of revenge and forgiveness have provided a framework for facilitating dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. In an article contributed to our Special Issue ‘Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Israel-Gaza conflict’, Amir shared personal experiences to illustrate the application of her theories to this terrible situation. I am very grateful for her contributions to this journal, and offer my congratulations that her work has been recognised with this important award.

We begin this issue with an article by Marloes Maatkamp, Hilda Derksen, Annette Paarlberg, Anja Joosten, and Jordy Rovers who report on a multidisciplinary Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) program for people with Severe Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD). SSD is a prevalent condition that significantly impairs quality of life and places a burden on health services. Emerging evidence suggests that psychotherapy, including DIT, can be a beneficial treatment for SS