Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

A Journal of Experimental Psychopathology

The Journal welcomes contributions to the understanding and treatment of psychopathology. Such contributions may stem from various theoretical perspectives. The Journal primarily focuses on (quasi)experimental tests of psychological approaches to psychopathology, though contributions from medicine, biology, sociology, or epidemiology may be considered. The same holds for non-experimental approaches (e.g., prospective approaches), which may occasionally be published if deemed relevant for the field of experimental psychopathology.
Papers to be published generally focus on:

• Theoretically or clinically relevant differences between specific patient groups and other groups, if experimentally tested;

• (Transdiagnostic) mechanisms that cause, perpetuate or reduce disorders;

• Diagnostic or therapeutic procedures

Participants in the studies may be patients, healthy subjects, or animals, depending on the relevance of the subject characteristics for the question to be answered. We encourage the investigation of transdiagnostic constructs. Relatedly, we strongly encourage studies testing hypotheses on characteristics of a disorder to not only include a non-patient control group, but also at least one appropriate clinical control group, to assess the specificity of the effect. We cannot guarantee acceptance of studies missing an appropriate clinical control group.

Pre-registration of all studies is strongly encouraged and justification of statistical power required. We ask authors who submit studies that were not pre-registered to provide a motivated justification in their cover letter. Clinical trials (RCTs and others) should be registered in an official trial register and the registration number should be reported. These studies should include a flow diagram according to the most recent CONSORT guidelines and a CONSORT checklist should accompany the submission. See http://www.consort-statement.org for the guidelines and forms. Any changes in the submitted study as compared to the pre-registered study (e.g., intended sample size, primary and secondary outcome variables, method) should be stated explicitly in the manuscript.

Case studies, open trials, and pilot studies may be considered for publication in the Journal if they are unusually innovative Consecutive case series with appropriate designs (i.e., contrasting at least two conditions; e.g. multiple baseline design) and appropriate statistical analyses are considered for publication.

Theoretical contributions on topics relevant to the field of experimental psychopathology are also considered as well as systematic reviews and meta-analyses, given that they meet the appropriate guidelines for reporting. Replications are essential in science and are, to the present editors' opinion, often undervalued. Short reports of attempts to replicate experimental studies, whether successful or failed, and whether applied or fundamental, are considered for publication, if appropriately powered. The maximum number of words is 2500 for these reports.

All submissions will first be screened on the degree to which they match the Aims and Scope of the Journal.