A Welcome Focus on Psychotherapy

The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry happily announces a new specialty section, Focus on Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy has been a mainstay of our field from its beginnings. It remains a foundational skill of psychiatry, psychology, social work, and other mental health professions. Psychotherapy education and research must remain among our priorities. Beyond its rich clinical tradition, rigorous psychotherapy research has expanded treatment options by defining evidence-based approaches for widespread disorders and exploring differential therapeutics.
Psychotherapies not only treat psychiatric diagnoses, either as monotherapy or as combined treatment; they do things other interventions cannot. In promoting self-reflection, psychotherapies empower patients to understand their own emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and life patterns, their symptoms and disorders, and their environment. They can help patients find meaning, adjust to and alter their circumstances, and transform their thinking and relationships. We need to protect psychotherapies and grow them amid the developments in neuroscience, psychopharmacology, and high-tech devices.

The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry has long valued psychotherapy research. The JCP editorial team recognizes that psychotherapy researchers currently struggle for funding and that this area too often does not receive the attention it deserves.  We hope that the Focus on Psychotherapy section serves our readership, fosters good clinical care, and inspires sound focal research. Psychotherapy is central to patient care, and its advancement is important to our mission at JCP.

As editors of the new section, we are delighted that the Journal is devoting a special Section to psychotherapy, building it a larger showcase. We welcome both original research and systematic reviews. We welcome research on:

• Innovative pilot trials of new, targeted psychotherapy interventions
• Efficacy and effectiveness outcome trials
• Process/outcome, mediator, and moderator studies
• Novel therapy dosing, delivery, and technology
• Psychotherapy accessibility and equity
• Tailoring treatment to patient needs
• Treatment advances in psychotherapy
• Implementation and dissemination of psychotherapy interventions in real world contexts

We plan to showcase work that advances knowledge of psychotherapies and their efficacy in alleviating suffering. Treatment and translational research focused on psychotherapy can draw on the strengths of our practice traditions while conveying the promise of exciting future directions, including integrating technology and neuroscience. We hope to foster interest and highlight work that moves psychotherapy forward as a robust and central component of psychiatry. Send us your best work.

About the Editors:

Rachel C. Vanderkruik, PhD, is a Staff Psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at University of Colorado Boulder and has been trained in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Dr Vanderkruik also has a master’s degree from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is interested in expanding access to evidence-based psychotherapy.

John C. Markowitz, MD, is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons and a Research Psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City. He trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Payne Whitney Clinic, in cognitive behavioral therapy at the Beck Institute, and in interpersonal psychotherapy with the late Gerald L. Klerman, MD. Dr Markowitz has devoted much of his career to psychotherapy-related research and training.

Published Online: May 23, 2024.
https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.24ed15386
© 2024 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.
J Clin Psychiatry 2024;85(2):24ed15386