On Giving Birth: Goodbye and Thank You From the Associate Editor
Keith Humphreys
DOI: 10.2190/Y80E-UNL0-6DYM-TNJW
Abstract
Everyone celebrates the birth of a child as an exciting beginning, which of course it is. At the same time only parents fully appreciate that birth is also the end of a long process of planning, working, thinking, worrying, and hoping. When Al Katz did me the kindness of asking me to help him found a journal focused on self-help/mutual aid, I made a three year commitment to the project. Not having given birth to a journal before, I naively assumed that when my time commitment ended in the year 2000, the twelfth issue of this journal would be on its way to our readers. In retrospect, I underestimated how much work would be involved in conception, pregnancy, labor, and delivery before the baby that was our first issue finally arrived: finding a publisher and establishing a workable arrangement with them, selecting an editorial board, defining the journal s mission, arranging publicity, taking care of seemingly limitless administrative details, and recruiting authors for the premier issue (only a few people are brave enough to submit work unprompted to a journal that does not yet exist!). At the same time, I am happy to say I also underestimated the gratifications when the moment of birth finally arrived. I was extremely proud of the product and grateful for all the people who helped make it a reality. Although birth was the high point, I do not want to overlook the benefits I received during the preceding pregnancy and the ensuing infant care. Being an editor gave me a better appreciation than ever of the diversity, talent, and *Preparation of this article was supported by NIAAA Grant AA11700-01 and the Veterans Affairs Mental Health Strategic Health Group.enthusiasm of individuals around the world who work in the self-help/self-care area. To open my mailbox and find a marvelous article submission about a self-help activity of which I was previously unaware, conducted in a city or country I had never visited, delighted me and gave me an expanded sense of community. If readers get even a little of those same feelings from issues of IJSHSC, the journal will have achieved one of its main purposes. In addition to thanking Baywood Publishing Co. (especially Bobbi Olszewski) and Al Katz, I want to close by acknowledging my talented and caring mid-wives the individuals who graciously gave of their time, intelligence, and experience to review material submitted to the journal. My sincere thanks to the members of the editorial board and to the following ad hoc reviewers: Arvin Bhana, Deanna Douglas, Jerry Finn, Benjamin Gidron, Janine Giese-Davis, Mitch Golant, Benjamin Gottlieb, Lee Ann Kaskutas, Storm King, Elena Klaw, Ernest Kurtz, Linda Kurtz, Eric Mankowski, Louis Medvene, Daphne Miller, Anne Moyer, Tomofumi Oka, David Perkins, Deborah Salem, Bertram St ffelmayr, Shelley Tiemeyer, Andrew Winzelberg, and Hiroe Yoda. We definitely have the village it takes to raise a child, and I look forward, like all of you, to seeing it grow.
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