vol. 2 issue 11
Greetings,
The first psychiatry papers I ever edited and published were ones I was handed the very day I was named managing editor of a continuing medical education-focused journal in psychiatry.
The collection was by a group of outré researchers headed by a Yale-trained psychiatrist fascinated by the Chinese “Book of Changes”. More commonly known now by its actual name, the I Ching, this 9th Century divination tool is largely considered a sacred text in China, while most Western scientists, given its random nature, view it with suspicion. This particular psychiatrist, however, insisted the papers were important in that they established how at least some forms of divination could be validated and used as a therapeutic tool.
There was considerable discussion behind the scenes as to whether it should even go to print. In part because the papers offered some data on whether the I Ching’s seemingly random patterns had any statistical value that might be seen as instructive, the papers at last won the editor-in-chief’s imprimatur, and that was that.
