Editorial

Dear Readers,

I am excited to introduce the latest issue of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, a special issue on the topic of Transmissions, which was the overall theme of the latest Nordic Psychoanalytic Congress in Oslo, held from August 8–11, 2024.

The editors of SPR invited all presenters to publish their congress presentations in a special issue of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review. As most of the presenters accepted our invitation, we are now able to present this special issue in two parts. The next issue of SPR will contain an additional eight articles on the topic of transformation.

We believe that publishing a special issue featuring conference presentations from the latest Nordic Psychoanalytic Congress is a valuable opportunity to make the latest developments in clinical and empirical research accessible to a wider audience, both inside and outside Scandinavia.

The invitation letter of the organizers of the 28th Nordic Psychoanalytic Congress (the scientific committee consisted of: Kari Høydahl [chair], Fredrik Cappelen, Hanne-Sofie Johnsen Dahl, Cecilie Hillestad Hoff, Mette Hvalstad, Sølvi Kristiansen, Tonya Hall Madsen, Hanne Strømme, Kristin F. Wold) describes and elaborates on the theme of transmission as follows:

“The theme for the congress is ‘Transmissions’. The term may have a foreign sound to psychoanalysts, still it resonates with phenomena and concepts that are central in psychoanalytic thinking.

With the theme “Transmissions”, we want to focus on various psychic phenomena and processes that involve the transportation of often unconscious states/emotions and ideas/values between people and between the culture and the individual. From birth, we are all exposed to conscious and unconscious transmissions of emotions and messages that require psychic processing.

Freud was the first to articulate how the past, through transferences and countertransferences, becomes alive in the analytic relationship. Bion has in his later writings, described so