Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of 2026. We begin with a systematic single-case study from Peru by Carla Mantilla, Pierina Traverso, Carolina Janto, Francesco Marinelli and Paz Lancho. ‘Pathways to Affect-Discourse Integration: The role of Gestural Interaction in Change Episodes in a Case of Focal Teletherapy at a University Mental Health Service’ describes a young adult receiving Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) for depression at a university health service. The authors studied the gestural-affective interaction and verbal exchanges between patient and therapist during episodes of representational change. Treatment sessions were conducted remotely and coded using the Generic Change Indicators System to identify Change Episodes, which were then processed using Face Reader Recognition Software to analyse their gestural-affective correlates. The data was interpreted using an emergent Thematic Analysis. Four implicit relational transactions were identified as being relevant to the patient’s process of affect/discourse integration: Balance, Discernment, Marking and Synchrony. The authors suggest that these results demonstrate how the therapeutic relationship can act as a resonant affective device and enable the connection between discourse and the emotional domain. They suggest that this can contribute to the elaboration of the Interpersonal Affective Focus and increase the patient’s emotional flexibility. They conclude that the gestural-affective therapeutic interaction is a relational context that enables the co-construction of what is traditionally described as insight.

We continue with a paper by Peter Fuggle, Michael Hollenstein, Beate Huter, Sarah Richards and Andy Haider entitled ‘Applying the concept of mentalization to leadership practice in mental health teams for children and young people’. This journal has previously published a paper describing the potential value of applying mentalization to leadership. In the current paper the authors, from various teams in