The Future of Psychological Treatments: Precision Approaches and Emerging Methods
A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Neuropsychiatry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 March 2027 | Viewed by 578
Editors
Interests: affective and clinical neuroscience; emotions; decision-making; experimental psychopathology
Interests: psychotherapy research; affective neuroscience
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Psychological treatments including but not limited to psychotherapy remain one of the most effective and enduring interventions for psychopathological disorders, with robust evidence across mood, anxiety, trauma-related, and personality disorders. However, contemporary psychology care increasingly faces fragmentation between symptom-based nosology, inability to predict relapse, choice of intervention, and the need for more individualized psychological treatment pathways.
This Special Issue aims to provide a state-of-the-art overview of psychotherapy as a core component of modern psychology, emphasizing neuroimaging biomarkers, neural models, clinical effectiveness, mechanistic understanding, and future innovations. We welcome contributions that integrate clinical psychology with psychotherapy research, including translational frameworks that connect cognitive–affective processes to symptom change, treatment failures and functional recovery.
In particular, we encourage work leveraging emerging methods such as computational neuroscience, machine learning-based treatment stratification, digital phenotyping, ecological momentary assessment, neuroimaging-informed psychotherapy, and process-based approaches to psychological change. Novel trial designs (e.g., adaptive interventions, precision psychotherapy, and mechanism-focused RCTs) are also strongly encouraged.
We invite original research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, brief reports, and theoretical perspectives on psychotherapy mechanisms, biomarkers of treatment response, transdiagnostic interventions, combined treatments, and implementation in real-world clinical settings—ultimately advancing translational applications that improve therapeutic outcomes and personalized care.
Prof. Dr. Alessandro Grecucci
Prof. Dr. Irene Messina
Dr. Davide Rivolta
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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. Brain 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.
Keywords
- psychotherapy
- psychiatry
- precision psychiatry
- computational psychiatry
- emotion regulation
- process-based therapy
- machine learning
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
- Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
- Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
- Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
- External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
- Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.
Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.
