Dear Colleagues,

In any given year, over 1 in 20 adults will suffer from a diagnosable, significant mental illness. The socio-economic burden of severe mental disorders, particularly of psychotic and mood disorders, presents significant challenges to health care providers worldwide. Often, severe mental illnesses are chronic in nature, with periods of waxing and waning. Indeed, many patients struggle to receive accessible and effective treatments. Appropriate treatment and management of severe mental illnesses is paramount to both the mental and physical health of patients. Without such treatment, the opportunity to regain normal social functioning, so as to return to school or work, and to engage in relationships, is greatly curtailed.

A diversity of treatment and management options are available, including psychotropic medications and mood stabilizers, psychotherapy (e.g., cognitive remediation, behavioral therapy), occupational therapy, recreational and physical therapies, family therapy, genetic counseling, and periods of clinical interventions or hospitalization when symptoms become overwhelming. The vast majority of mental health patients are best served by a combination of two or more treatments and interventions. In this special issue of Behavioral Sciences, various treatment and management options will be explored, and their efficacy will be discussed. I invite you to submit papers that discuss varying types of interventions for psychotic and mood disorders, the efficacy of such interventions, and the challenges associated with the treatment and management of severe mental illnesses. Both primary data and reviews are welcomed.

Donna J. Lang,
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 350 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• severe mental illness
• psychotropic medications
• behavioral therapy
• cognitive therapy
• clinical intervention
• treatment efficacy in mental illness
• genetic counseling and mental illness