Where are we going, where have we been?

Abstract

This editor’s introduction maps out the author’s reflections on the past trajectory of Psychoanalytic Perspectives while also charting out potential directions for its future. She reviews some of the influences that have helped shape the current context of contemporary psychoanalysis, and elucidates the dilemma facing the current Relational psychoanalytic moment, as she sees it. Relational psychoanalysts have been walking a tightrope, squeezed by the perils of the twin pitfalls of relativism and dogma, and the author advocates for more clarity and dialogue around the central ethics and beliefs that hold this theoretical perspective together to create a coherent Relational psychoanalytic identity.