Positive Clinical Psychology

Dear Colleagues,

For almost two decades, positive psychology has challenged heavily skewed deficit-oriented approaches to mental health and espoused to make it more balanced—giving equal attention, effort, and importance to acknowledging, assessing, and integrating strengths and well-being with deficits and disorders. A number of rigorous lines of applied research in education, health, work, and organizations have demonstrated the incremental benefits of positive attributes. Advancing these gains in the clinical realm, in collaboration with the Clinical Division of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA), Behavioral Sciences invites manuscripts for a Special Issue on Positive Clinical Psychology (PCP).

For more information about Positive Clinical Psychology, please see: https://www.ippanetwork.org/divisions/clinical/

The overarching goal of PCP is to integrate symptoms with strengths, risks with resources, weaknesses with values, isolation with attachment, and regrets with hope in order to understand the inherent complexities of clinical concerns. The focus of this Issue is to advance the evidence base as well as widen the therapeutic lens to help clinicians apply PCP to a greater extent.

We are mindful that the word positive in PCP can easily lead clinicians into thinking that Positive Psychology is only about positivity and its interventions are only relevant to address typically developing populations or mild-to-moderate clinical concerns, but not sufficiently deep enough to grasp clinical complexities typically captured by a deficit-based approach. Rather than establishing PCP as a separatist clinical endeavor, our hope through this Issue is to bring a diverse array of clinical researchers and practitioners together who are keen to share their expertise on a balanced approach—one that integrates both deficit and strengths. We believe that such an integration will likely make psychological treatments more accessible and appealing to clients. We invite manuscripts that describe innovative clinical approaches of assessing, appreciating, and amplifying what is good about clients without minimizing their distress. In the truest spirit of integration, we are looking for manuscripts that complement—rather than compete with—well-established treatment approaches. Additionally, any inclusive and holistic approach to PCP is incomplete without consideration of cultural nuances. Thus, we expect manuscripts to be culturally responsive.

Manuscripts can cover a wide range of clinical concerns, approaches, assessment, measures, and interventions. Both evidence-based intervention manuscripts and clinical practice manuscripts that can inform the research will be considered. Diverse methodological approaches will also be considered, such as large-scale multi-site studies, meta-analyses, qualitative studies, case studies, and process and outcome research. Manuscripts with case studies and vignettes must comply with APA’s ethical code regarding presenting client information in a de-identified, well-disguised form and/or with informed consent.

Manuscripts can be submitted through the journal’s electronic portal: https://susy.mdpi.com/user/manuscripts/upload?journal=behavsci.

We will review manuscripts for consideration for this Special Issue by March 31st, 2019. Any inquiries or questions regarding this Special Issue can be directed to the Guest Editors: Tayyab Rashid, [email protected]; or Rhea Owens, [email protected].

Dr. Tayyab Rashid
Dr. Rhea Owens
Guest Editors

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 submissions that pass pre-check are 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 monthly 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 2200 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.

• Positive psychology
• Positive clinical psychology
• Psychotherapy
• Counseling
• Strengths
• Positive psychology interventions