Editorial

In the interval between the 11th and the 12th volumes of The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, the editorial office moved from Copenhagen to Stockholm. This does not imply any change in the journal's attachment to the Danish publishing house, Munksgaard, with whom relationships have been very satisfactory.

It is an honour to take over the responsibilities of the editor-in-chief, and it is a pleasure to be in a position to express the gratitude that the Scandinavian psychoanalytical societies owe to my predecessor Dr. Henning Paikin, the man who, with endless care, devotion and diplomacy has managed to raise a stumbling two-year-old into a steady and promising youth in early adolescence. During his nine years of editorship, Henning Paikin has established a stock of solid routines, a stable economy and, last but not least, a tradition of high quality of the scientific contributions.

It is by no means a matter of course that the four Scandinavian psychoanalytical societies should be able to come to an agreement on being jointly responsible for editing a journal, and it is indeed remarkable that, as far as I know, its usefulness has never been seriously questioned during these first eleven years of its existence. In the eyes of the world, Scandinavia may appear a natural unity. As a matter of fact, peaceful relations between the Nordic people are a rather late historical acquisition, after a thousand years of besieging, conquering and colonizing each other. In the light of the past, it would be native to believe that our relationships should bear no remnants of old grudges and needs of stressing national independence.

Undoubtedly, differences exist in analytic styles and ways of thinking between the societies. Furthermore, there is the embarrassing problem of difficulties in understanding each other's language. To put it simply, the Finns ordinarily understand Swedish, the Swedes have no difficulty with Norwegian, and the Norwegians put up with Danish, both written a