I take the reins of The American Psychoanalyst from Prudy Gourguechon with great pleasure and respect for her work. Yet I pause at my own metaphor. It is an image out of the buggy, buckboard, and horseback riding era. Prudy, while cognizant of the history and traditions of the great intellectual and clinical force that is psychoanalysis, has been busy settling, with will and imagination, the new territory of the 21st century. She has turned TAP toward the future.
The American Psychoanalyst she is handing over is a complex publication. It serves to inform people about the organizational issues and politics of the American Psychoanalytic Association. To do so, it covers the meetings of the Executive Committee, the Executive Council, the Board on Professional Standards, their officers and their committees. It must do so in a way that is lively, neutral, and informative. For it to function as a democratic organization, APsaA must have an informed membership.
The mandate of TAP also includes the state of psychoanalysis. It covers in a non-technical way the outreach of both APsaA and its constituent institutes, societies, and individual members. The scope of psychoanalytic treatment is widening, and the declining numbers of cases and candidates are of deep concern to the membership of the American Psychoanalytic Association and must be of deep concern to the editor of TAP.
Despite the ideal of objectivity, we know that the news is always shaped. These decisions come in the form of what to write about, how to write it, and what placement to give the story. And so, while my first challenge will be to maintain Prudy's standards and forward motion, TAP, over time, is bound to shift. Prudy has written about her hope that the writing of TAP will improve, that the content will deepen, and that visually it be more varied and interesting. I take that as my charge.
I will trade upon my background in “newspapering,” as Howard Simon, a colleague and mentor of mine at the Washington Post once called it, to occasionally give a harder news edge to TAP's coverage.
Delving deeper into my history as a newspaper reader, I was nourished growing up reading Jock Whitney's New York Herald-Tribune. Walter Kerr, Jimmy Breslin, and Walter Lippmann appeared in its pages. The slogan on its masthead was, “Who says a good newspaper has to be dull?” It is a high standard. Prudy has held TAP to it; and I hope to do the same.
I also hope to expand still further the scope of the newsletter, writing at times about non-APsaA and non-American psychoanalysis. TAP will continue its commitment to writing about psychoanalysis and science. I am delighted that Robert Michels has agreed to edit the science column. TAP will also continue to cover psychoanalysis in the community and in the humanities. Vera Camden, a CORST graduate who is a specialist in studies of the 17th century writer John Bunyan, has joined the Editorial Board and is at work on a special section on psychoanalysis and the arts.
I will always be open to your opinions and ideas. Letters to the editor are welcome. But I also look forward to more informal communication—in person, by e-mail message and by telephone.
All in all, I am deeply committed to psychoanalysis and optimistic about its future.
—Michael Slevin
Michael Slevin, M.A., is editor of TAP.