Uselessness of APA's Clinical Journals

• Published in: The American psychologist 1978-01, Vol.33 (1), p.92-92
• Main Authors: Fine, Harold J, Barlow, Jack, McIntyre, Anne, Rasch, Norman, Handler, Leonard, Cohen, Charles, O'Connell, Michael, Dye, Neal W, Erickson, Jeffrey, Berez, William, Laurence, Lance, Kronk, Philip
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Human; Professional Organizations; Psychology; Scientific Communication
• ISSN: 0003-066X; 1935-990X
• DOI: 10.1037/h0078543

We are a group of clinical psychologists, teaching, writing, and practicing. Throughout the years, we have become unduly impressed by the uselessness of the APA journals devoted to supposedly clinical subjects. We refer specifically to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology , the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , and even to Professional Psychology An exception to this is Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice , the journal published by Division 29. However, this latter journal is so behind in its manuscript publication that literally years go by. We are embarrassed that we must go for intellectual sustenance to other disciplines' journals and even write for them. Nowhere, to our knowledge, has there been published in any of the supposed clinical journals some of the recent theoretical, empirical, and clinical findings within the burgeoning areas of borderline states, narcissistic disorders, character problems, the developmental precursors of psychopathologies, or any of the dynamic psychologies and psychotherapies. The result has been that information and communication of certain important works have been blocked, leaving us with dry-as-dust empiricism and behavioristic and public-policy kinds of psychology. We do not seek to inhibit the continuation of these necessary communications, but we do ask for a broadening to provide the clinical practitioner, theoretician, and researcher an audience too.