INTRODUCTION

This is the first volume of a monograph series, Psychoanalytic Issues, published jointly by the Rivista di Psicoanalisi (journal of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society) and Karnac Books. The series, and in particular this first volume, is primarily the result of deliberations within the editorial board, initiated when Alberto Semi became Editor-in-Chief three years ago. In addition, it addresses a long-standing problem—the relative isolation of our Psychoanalytic Society as a result of language barriers. It is true that such is the fate of most psychoanalytic communities that do not use English as their main language—their scientific debates are seldom communicated to other linguistic groupings. And we may all agree that it is a terrible waste to develop ideas if they cannot circulate freely and be open to confirmation and refinement.

We believe that there is a great contrast between the liveliness of much scientific discourse in our midst and communication abroad. The international scientific literature is widely read in Italy, both in the original and in translation. Consequently, our members are keenly aware of developments on the international scene; this diffusion of information is largely responsible for the pluralism that characterizes our psychoanalytic community. We feel it is incumbent upon us, at this point, to overcome the failure to communicate with our colleagues abroad—to master our partial aphasia, so to speak. Hence it is no coincidence that we initiate our monographic series in English with an issue devoted to “writing in psychoanalysis”.

All this might sound as though we had had some grand general plan in mind when we decided to initiate the series. Actually, we were at first unable to avail ourselves of anything so sophisticated, the whole project having grown in a more elementary manner, somewhat evocative of the growth of organic matter—by “accretion”, as it were. The Shorter O.E.D. defines this process variously as “Continued growth. . . . The growing together of particles, or of parts normally separate. . . . The process of growth by external addition . . .”, and so on.

The nucleus of this particular volume saw the light following a November 1993 colloquium organized by Semi for those involved in publishing the Rivista. The aim of this meeting was to discuss the many problems involved in writing and, consequently, the particular difficulties of editorial work. The idea was to reflect both on the intrapsychic and the relational dimensions at stake: in particular, concerning the latter, we felt that, as psychoanalysts involved in editorial work, an elaboration of the relationship between us and the authors who sent their papers in for evaluation was crucial. The meeting was extremely stimulating, and the papers were published in Issue 4, 1993, of the Rivista, as a way of communicating to the readers of the Journal not only the meaning of our work as editors, but also the meaning that their work had for us, over and above the technicalities involved in the evaluation of a manuscript. We thought it might be interesting to hear what analysts from other psychoanalytic cultures, also engaged in editing a psychoanalytic journal, might have to say on the subject, and, since responses were encouraging, it was decided that it might be worth while publishing our efforts, having further expanded the process of growth by the addition of contributions by colleagues from other psychoanalytic cultures.

We are grateful to John Gedo, Patrick Mahony, and Henning Paikin not only for the intrinsic value of their respective papers, but, above all, for their readiness to contribute to this volume, thus sustaining our belief in the vitality of a truly common psychoanalytic culture, transcending the limits imposed by differing idioms. To this end, the theme of the present monograph appears to us a particularly apt one. After all, the history of writing in psychoanalysis is part and parcel of the history of the psychoanalytic movement—from Freud onwards, all psychoanalysts have felt the need to write psychoanalysis and have wrestled with the difficulties involved.

The Editors