The sixth annual meeting of the Council of Editors of Psychoanalytic Journals took place during the 2003 Winter Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The council, which has been thriving and growing since its inception, is an important venue for discussing matters relevant to the editing of psychoanalytic journals. Founded and chaired by Joseph Reppen, the council now numbers seventy-one members who edit the major psychoanalytic journals worldwide.
Members' publications include journals from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Israel, South Africa, India, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. A broad ideological spectrum is in evidence, with contemporary Freudian, Kleinian, Adlerian, Horneyan, and Jungian journals represented. There are journals whose primary emphasis is infant, child, and adolescent psychoanalysis; gender issues; relational, intersubjective, and interpersonal psychoanalysis; group analysis; psychohistory and the history of psychoanalysis; and the application of psychoanalysis to literature and the arts. The newest member is Moshe Halevi Spero, editor of Israel Psychoanalytic Journal.
Discussions over the past few meetings have included the important subject of privacy and confidentiality. Additionally, the editors have discussed electronic publishing, subscription and mailing lists, Web sites, rejection rates, the PEP CD-ROM, exchange advertising, and the problems of the peer review process. At the most recent meeting, members noted the relative absence of psychoanalysis in introductory psychology texts, acknowledging that often information for college students about psychoanalysis comes from English departments rather than psychology departments.
Plans are under way for a meeting in Toronto during the International Psychoanalytical Association congress. This would make it easier for editors from overseas to attend the council meeting since they will be there for the IPA congress. Questions about the Council of Editors of Psychoanalytic Journals should be addressed to Joseph Reppen, 21 I East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021 .
Joseph Reppen, Ph.D., is the editor of Psychoanalytic Psychology: The Journal of the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association, and a member of APsaA's Public Information Committee. He wrote the biographies of prominent analysts that appear in the Psychoanalytic Timeline on APsaA's public information Web page.