Welcome to the autumn issue of our journal (if you’re in the northern hemisphere, that is), which returns to themes with which Self & Society has forthrightly engaged many times over its 44-year history: masculinity and gender. We wanted to do cutting-edge justice to both themes, so we invited two inspirational S&S stalwarts, book reviews editor Manu Bazzano and former S&S editor Jennifer Maidman, to guest edit these two symposia on masculinity and gender, respectively. And as we hope you’ll agree, both have done us truly proud, with a stellar range of papers on what are ever-prescient and changing themes for all of us. We owe both Manu and Jennifer much gratitude for what they have achieved here – thank you, both, from us and our readers. In the event, Jennifer’s symposium evolved into a focus on transgender issues, a theme that is receiving a great deal of prominence in the media and in modern culture more generally (including storylines in our most popular TV soap operas). As always, you can hopefully rely upon this journal to bring you the leading-edge critical thinking on all issues ‘psychological’, including this one. We’ll leave Manu and Jennifer to introduce the papers in their symposia, and we also hope that these papers will generate some interesting editorial correspondence from our readers.
In this issue we also include a follow-up on the ‘depressive realism’ theme from the previous issue. Specifically, we invited several eminent humanistic/existential writers to offer a commentary on this suite of papers, with guest editor Colin Feltham then writing a rejoinder. We hope you agree that these contributions from Ernesto Spinelli, Caroline Brazier, John Rowan and Colin Feltham serve to deepen the engagement with what is at stake in a debate that perhaps sits somewhat uneasily with humanistically inclined folk like us. Again, readers’ letters on this theme would be greatly welcomed.
To complement her Gender theme symposium, we also have a retro review by Jennifer Maidman on a classic text from the transgender oeuvre. We also include a fascinating interview with art therapist and walker Karin Jarman, in which Karin offers perspectives on walking that honour both the inner and the outer, and which we’re sure will speak deeply to our readers. And to complement this, we also include a retro book review, again by Karin, on wildness, and one by Richard House on ‘healing beyond Freud’ – both of which, as you will see, relate closely to some of the themes touched upon in Karin’s panoramic interview.
Regarding our regulars. Manu is taking a well-deserved rest following a stunning collection of book reviews in the previous issue, but we have Robert Sardello’s regular column on Psychology for Heart and Soul, Lucy Scurfield’s ever-present AHP chair’s page, and we also welcome back Stuart Morgan-Ayre’s ever-engaging political column. Sissy Lykou will hopefully be resuming her excellent News Exchange column in the next issue.
We are still trying to clear a backlog of excellent contributions to the journal, and we’re very grateful to our much-valued contributors for their patience with this.
As you will see from Lucy Scurfield’s chair’s page, Richard has decided to step down from the co-editorship of the journal, and his replacement will take up her or his role from the first issue of 2017, working alongside David. Richard is delighted to be staying on as an associate editor, and to be available to offer any support to the journal that would be helpful in the forthcoming transitional phase. In his five years as co-editor, Richard has helped to oversee the transition of this journal from a small-format magazine to an international publisher’s leading-edge psychology journal, and he is delighted to have been able to offer – in collaborative conjunction with David Kalisch and Jennifer Maidman – this contribution to the Humanistic Psychology field.
In the next and final issue for which Richard will be co-responsible, we are especially excited to be including a major and exclusive interview with one of modern music’s greatest living musicians, the jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, which will address many of the fascinating cross-overs and commonalities between music and Humanistic Psychology, broadly defined. Music perhaps receives far less prominence in the journal than it warrants, and this interview with one of modern music’s true greats will hopefully begin to rectify this lacuna. Both David and Richard have long been great admirers of John’s work, and it’s a great thrill to be featuring this fascinating interview in the final issue of the year.
The next issue will also feature a theme symposium on the work of Paul Goodman, and we know already what enthralling reading this will be for us all. We wish you well as the evenings start to close in, and trust that you’ll enjoy the varied fare that our wonderful contributors have created for us in this new issue of the journal.
Richard and David