Editorial

Dear readers,

When I started to write this editorial in the beginning of March, the situation in Middle East had just exploded. Films and reports of the bombing came to us almost intrusively on the television news. This followed the last years impressions from the war in Ukraine and the 7 October attack on Israel and the following war in Gaza.

Some weeks later, I attended the EPF conference in Oslo with the thema ‘Neutrality’. A presentation by David Bell especially caught my attention: ‘Psychoanalyst as Analyst/Psychoanalyst as Citizens. Contribution to the question of neutrality when psychoanalysts engage in discussion of socio-political/cultural phenomena with particular reference to Gaza.’ (Bell, 2026). It starts with a quote from Freud:

The chief aim of psychoanalysis is to contribute to the science of psychology and to the world of literature and life in general. Freud

Bell puts forward as a basic perspective that Freud many places claimed that psychoanalysis as a discipline is not only about understanding the psyche or psychoanalytic treatment but should also be used to understand different aspects of society and culture. Bell argues that the cultural relevance of psychoanalysis is visible through all of Freud’s work, not only in those parts where he focuses directedly on cultural phenomena. Psychoanalysis could be seen as a Janus face that looks both inwards on the workings of the mind and outwards on culture and society.

Bell argues that if psychoanalysis is positioned only as a clinical discipline, it does not represent a threat to the social or political world. From this perspective, Bell writes that the demand of ‘Neutrality’ in the psychoanalytic situation is necessary. However, when a psychoanalyst engages in the socio-political situation in the world, ‘Neutrality’ as an attitude constitutes a misunderstanding of what psychoanalysis really is about. We should be free to apply psychoanalytic knowledge or dialog to social-political and cultural events in the