The American Academy of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic Psychiatry
Academy Update
Dear Colleagues:
In 2012 after ten years and two terms of distinguished service, Dr. Douglas Ingram will retire from editorship of the Journal of The Academy of Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychiatry. At that time Dr. Richard C. Friedman will become editor of the Journal. Dr. Friedman and the new Deputy Editor, Dr. Jennifer Downey, recommended that the Journal change its name and modify its format. Council approved this recommendation and the new title of the journal will be Psychodynamic Psychiatry.
As Dr. Friedman discussed with Council, there is presently a great need in psychiatry for a forum exclusively devoted to psychodynamic psychiatry. No other journal of that name currently exists, and although the American Journal of Psychiatry does publish psychodynamically oriented articles, most psychiatric journals do not. In fact, the discipline of psychodynamic psychiatry is presently threatened in American psychiatry and inconsistently taught in psychiatric residency training programs, despite substantial interest in it by residents, medical students, and many faculty members.
In the past, psychodynamic psychiatry was considered an example of applied psychoanalysis. There tended to be, more or less, one-way communication between the two fields with psychoanalysis informing psychiatry, but not the reverse. This seemed to work reasonably well until recently, but developments in psychiatry and psychoanalysis have led to the need for a different paradigm. Although psychoanalytic institutes have recently emphasized application of psychoanalytic ideas to the understanding and treatment of psychiatric patients, the need for illumination is far greater than can be met by the institutes alone. Psychiatry has advanced greatly during the past few decades, and modern psychodynamically oriented psychiatrists must be conversant with progress in bio-descriptive psychiatry and neuroscience in order to formulate the psychodynamic components of assessment and treatment adequately. Communication between psychiatry and psychoanalytic psychology now needs to be much more of a dialogue between the two than used to be the case.
Psychodynamic Psychiatry will continue to take submissions focusing on psychoanalysis and long-term intensive psychotherapy as the Journal of the Academy always did. In addition, Psychodynamic Psychiatry will develop an evidence-based clinical emphasis. We are interested in all psychodynamically relevant aspects of clinical work, including (but not restricted to) assessment/diagnosis, psychotherapy treatments, relationships between psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, and the education of psychodynamically oriented clinicians. Narrative clinical discussions will continue to be welcome in Psychodynamic Psychiatry as they always were in the Journal. Clinical research, including (but not limited to) process and outcome research, will also find a home in Psychodynamic Psychiatry. We hope to publish articles on the border of psychoanalytic psychology, and the neurosciences on the one hand, and psychoanalytic psychology and public health on the other.
This is an exciting time in the history of psychiatry. We are confident that the Academy’s journal, Psychodynamic Psychiatry, will have an important role in shaping issues of contemporary relevance as we go forward.
Sincerely yours,
Richard C. Friedman, M.D.
Editor-Elect, Psychodynamic Psychiatry
Jennifer Downey, M.D.
Deputy Editor-Elect, Psychodynamic Psychiatry
César A. Alfonso, M.D.
President, American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry