My Journal Years, 1972 to 1977—A Look Back

Abstract

Personal reminiscences, like all autobiographies, offer the privileged insights of the one-who-was-there but suffer, of course, from a lack of objectivity. Memory is invariably filtered to serve the personal narrative that even the most conscientious writer has constructed over the years. That said, I recall my relatively brief period as editor of The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry (then the Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal) with great pleasure. After 1 moved from Montreal to Ottawa in 1971, the Journal 's founding editor, Dr Rhodes Chalke, invited me to become an associate editor, joining Dr Jean-Baptiste Boulanger. However, whereas Dr Boulanger was busy in Montreal with his psychoanalytic practice and his teaching at the Universite de Montreal, Dr Chalke took advantage of my proximity in Ottawa to involve me in all aspects of the Journal 's activities. I soon discovered that, despite the interest of Dr Boulanger and a 6-member Editorial Board (Harvey Alderton, Jean Delâge, GE Hobbs, Heinz Lehmann, David Lewis, and Edward Margetts), publishing the Journal had been essentially the work of 2 persons-Rhodes Chalke and Violet (Vi) Appleton. The Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal was established by Dr Rhodes Chalke in 1955 as the scientific and professional voice of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, then still in its infancy. Vi Appleton, his secretary at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, was his strong right arm. A highly energetic, articulate, postwar English immigrant to Canada, she was well organized and efficient and gradually assumed increasing responsibility, not only for the administrative aspects of the work-managing the office and its single secretary, minding the budget, dealing with Runge Press (which put out our issues), and so on-but also for the copy-editing and correcting of grammatical faults in papers accepted for publication. By the time I became associate editor, she had quite justifiably been granted the title of managing editor. Rhodes Chalke, editor-in-chief from 1955 to 1972, had been professor and chair of the University of Ottawa's Department of Psychiatry and one of the founders of the Association. A gentle, kind, and forgiving person, he once told me that his most difficult professional task was writing letters rejecting unworthy papers submitted by his friends and colleagues. The Journal was all-important to Rhodes. He was determined that it become a source of pride for Canadian psychiatrists and that it earn a place among international psychiatric publications. It is to his credit that the Journal gradually gained strength until these 2 objectives were met. In 1972, Dr Chalke decided to step down as editor-in-chief, in anticipation of the increased responsibilities he would face as incoming president of the Association, and he recommended my appointment as his successor and second editor-in-chief. My first issue-Volume 18, Number 1, January 1973-began with my editorial, coauthored with Vi Appleton and entitled Relieve the Wheel and Look Out, a nautical expression for a change of watch that was no doubt suggested by her husband, the naval authority and author Thomas Appleton. The editorial focused on the Journal 's origins and Dr Chalke's leadership. An expanded Editorial Board now numbered 17: John Adamson, Harvey Alderton, James Brown, William Brown, John Cleghorn, Jean Delâge, Jean Fortin, GE Hobbs, Gordon Johnson, Heinz Lehmann, Eva Lester, David Lewis, Edward Margetts, Philip Ney, Harry Prosen, Martin Solomon, and WT Stauble. Jean-Baptiste Boulanger remained associate editor, and Vi Appleton, of course, was managing editor. The addition of an advertising manager (Helen O'Brien) and a circulation manager (Kay Montagano) strengthened the office. Some stylistic changes and a new cover design were introduced, as well as 3 new features that appeared in many of the issues for which I was responsible. These were position papers that not only summarized a field of psychiatry but usually also presented a point of view, a forum that brought together discussants with divergent ideas, and research notes, written mostly by John M Cleghorn, that summarized recent research findings not likely to be encountered by practitioners reading only a general psychiatry journal. …