Editorial

Volume Two of the twenty-seventh edition of Existential Analysis completes one of the largest editions that we have produced. As such, this is indicative of the number of excellent contributions which the Journal continues to attract both from British existential theorists and practitioners, and internationally – indeed, true to form, the current volume contains papers from writers based not only in the UK, but also in the United States, Mexico, Germany and Greece. We also include two further presentations from among the very many given at the historic first World Congress for Existential Therapy which was held in London in May last year. We are sure that these, along with the seven previously published in Volume One, will enable readers who were at the Congress to recapture a Flavour of this historic event in the development of existential therapy around the globe, and for those who were not present they will indicate the quality and relevance of the many presentations and workshops.

We also include four papers from the 2015 Annual Conference of our own Society for Existential Analysis: among these we are particularly glad to be able to reproduce Professor Ernesto Spinelli's Keynote 'Relatedness – Contextualizing Being and Doing in Existential Therapy'; Michael Montgomery's paper, with which we open this volume, provides a politically astute and challenging analysis of 'increasingly commodified, process-driven and risk averse' psychotherapy, and its implications for the future of our profession.

A number of ground-breaking submissions by doctoral researchers reflect current thinking across a range of areas of practice: Rachel Osbourne, for example, offers a critique of the use of psychopathological conceptualisations of paranoia in counselling psychology practice; Monica Lawson outlines how Open Dialogue can be used as an 'applied Laingian practice'; Amir Tarsha reflects on social media-induced anxiety from the perspective of existential practice. Finally, Diana Mitchell contributes a moving and insightful reflection on 'Life and Death – A Meditation', co-authored by Susanna Rennie and Ernesto Spinelli, which appeared in the last volume of this Journal.

We close this volume, as usual, with a series of erudite and engaging book reviews. Our thanks to Martin Adams for editing this section. Please do contact him if you would like to review any titles from our list of publications received for review.

Simon du Plock
Greg Madison