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Editorial |
The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research has a new format, a new sponsor, new editorial board members, and, beginning next year, a new full-text Internet site.
You have undoubtedly noticed that the Journal has a new look—an attractive redesign and a larger page size. One big advantage of the new format is that it will permit us to publish more and longer articles in each quarterly issue.
We have also gained a new official sponsor. Although the American Psychiatric Press, Inc., will continue to provide its professional peer review, editorial, and production services, the Journal is now published by and is an official journal of the American Psychiatric Association. We believe that this new sponsorship demonstrates a significant commitment by the APA to our patients through its publishing support of the scientific advances in psychotherapy. Sponsorship of the Journal by the APA also acknowledges the centrality of psychotherapy in clinical practice and the need to provide a forum for clinicians to read about and share their experiences. The need to sustain a forum for psychotherapy practice is especially urgent now, given the recent short-sighted efforts to reduce the role of psychotherapy in the education and training of psychiatric residents.1–3
Becoming an official journal of the American Psychiatric Association will also permit the Journal to go online with the other publications of the APA. Readers will hear more about this benefit soon. We also anticipate that with the support of the APA, the Journal will continue to build on the success it has achieved and enter into an era of sustained growth that can take advantage of a wide network of publishing services that APA can provide. In short, we believe that this new relationship will be extraordinarily beneficial to JPPR.
For instance, the APA Commission on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists (COPP) has elucidated areas of psychotherapy research that should be pursued to improve patient care. We are strongly in agreement with this agenda. We reiterate some of these challenges below and hope that the field will respond with additional research on the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
A CALL FOR NEW RESEARCH TO IMPROVE PATIENT CARE
First, with respect to cost-effectiveness of modern psychotherapeutic practice, research is needed in the use of the following:
Second, there is ample evidence that efficacy studies that employ randomized controlled designs in both psychopharmacology and psychotherapy do not always reflect the realities of practice and therefore are not as helpful to practitioners as they might be. More effectiveness research that has high generalizability to practice is sorely needed.
Third, much is made of the direct costs of mental health services by managed care organizations, but little attention has been paid to the indirect benefits of psychotherapy, such as its impact on lost work time, substance abuse, family dysfunction, medical illness, and compliance with other medical treatments, to name but a few. Similarly, we have almost no data from managed care organizations regarding cost and effectiveness of psychotherapy benefits to children, families, and adults.
These are the issues that we hope to address in future issues of the Journal, and we are very proud of the Journal's progress since the first issue appeared in the winter of 1992. Citations to articles that were published in the Journal are regularly appearing throughout the psychotherapy literature in review articles, case reports, and original research. Educators also continue to use the Journal's articles in their courses and with trainees.
A CALL FOR COMMENTS, CASES, AND NEW CLINICAL RESEARCH REPORTS
Yet we still have a long way to go, and you as a reader can help. First, to make the Journal as accessible and as useful as possible, we need reader feedback on the types of articles that we publish. Second, in light of the decreasing time allotted for psychotherapy instruction in many residency training programs, and in view of the marked decrease in clinical psychotherapy articles for practitioners in the leading adult and child psychiatric journals, we need more case reports and clinically related articles. There is an ever-growing need for psychotherapists at all stages of education to have a forum that addresses the real-world practice of psychotherapy. We urge you, the readers, to submit more of these articles and to send us your comments about the articles we publish.
In 1992, we welcomed our readers to "a new forum for contemporary psychotherapy." Now, in 1999 and into the year 2000, we invite your participation in a renewed forum for the advancement of psychotherapy practice and research.
References
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