Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
One of the world’s most respected publications in psychoanalysis, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA) offers insightful and broad-based original articles, ground-breaking research, thoughtful plenary addresses, in-depth panel reports, perceptive commentaries, plus much more. Included in each issue is the esteemed JAPA Review of Books, which provides comprehensive reviews of and essays on recent notable literature. JAPA provides an important forum for the exchange of new ideas and highlights the contribution of psychoanalytic principles in helping to understand important social problems.
JAPA explores all the important topics you need to stay on top of your profession—from clinical issues and innovations to new methodologies to education and professional development issues to interdisciplinary studies to emerging theories and techniques.
Among the important topics in recent issues are:
- Child Analysis & Development
- Gender and Sexuality
- Hermeneutics
- Interdisciplinary Studies
- Masculinity In The 21st Century
- Medication And Psychoanalysis
- Modern And Postmodern Trends In Psychoanalysis
- Neuroscience
- Professional Ethics
- Psychoanalytic Education and Training
- Psychoanalytic Technique
- Psychoanalytic Theory
- Psychotherapy
- Research Methodologies
- Trauma Theory
Published bimonthly, this peer-reviewed publication is an invaluable resource for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other mental health professionals.
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association is available electronically through SAGE Journals at http://journals.sagepub.com/home/APA
JAPA is the official journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA)--APsA Members receive preferred subscription rates that include online access. Join today at www.apsa.org!
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA) is the preeminent North American psychoanalytic scholarly journal in terms of number of subscriptions, frequency of citation in other scholarly works and the preeminence of its authors.
Published bimonthly, this peer-reviewed publication is an invaluable resouce for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals.
JAPA publishes original articles, research, plenary presentations, panel reports, abstracts, commentaries, editorials and correspondence. In addition, the JAPA Review of Books provides in-depth reviews of recent literature.
| Gregory Rizzolo | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Virginia Barry | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Phil Blumberg | Columbia University, USA |
| Anne Erreich | New York University School of Medicine, USA |
| Kerry Malawista | Contemporary Freudian Society, USA |
| David Pauley | Private Practice, USA |
| Stephen H. Portuges | Private Practice, Oakland, CA, USA |
| Luis Ripoll | Icahn School of Medicine and New York Psychoanalytic Institute |
| Kate Schechter | Private Practice, USA |
| Matthew Steinfeld | Yale University School of Medicine, USA |
| Alan Sugarman | San Diego Psychoanalytic Center, USA |
| Kris Yi | The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Lynne Zeavin | New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute |
| Anne Adelman | Private Practice, Chevy Chase, MD, USA |
| Elizabeth Hamlin | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Gretchen Hermes | Yale School of Medecine, USA |
| Rachel Boue-Widawsky | Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Konstantinos Taliouridis | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Ricardo Ainslie | The University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Christine Anzieu-Premmereur | Columbia University, USA |
| Seth Aronson | William Alanson White Institute, USA |
| John Auerbach | Nova Southeastern University College of Psychology, USA |
| Jeffrey Berman | University at Albany, SUNY, USA |
| Kim Bernstein | Private Practice New York, NY, USA |
| Christina Biedermann | Adler University, USA |
| Andrew Celenza | Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, USA |
| Giuseppe Civitarese | Private Practice Pavia, Italy |
| Steven H. Cooper | Columbia University, USA |
| Lance Dodes | Harvard Medical School, USA |
| Jack Drescher | William Alanson White Institute, USA |
| Lena Ehrlish | Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and Society, USA |
| Charles Fisher | San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Henry Friedman | Harvard Medical School, USA |
| Robert Galatzer-Levy | University of Chicago, USA |
| Jeffrey H. Golland | Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA |
| Francisco Gonzalez | Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, USA |
| William Gottdiener | John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA |
| Lee Grossman | SF Center for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Anton Hart | Private Practice, New York, NY, USA |
| Leslie Keith | Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Brian Kloppenbergh | IPTAR |
| Frederic Levine | Florida Psychoanalytic Center, USA |
| Riccardo Lombardi | Roman Psychoanalytic Institute, Italy |
| Alfred Margulies | Cambridge Health Alliance, USA |
| Henry Markman | University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, USA |
| Karen J. Maroda | Medical College of Wisconsin, USA |
| Rex H. McGehee | University of Colorado School of Medicine, USA |
| Alistair McKnight | Cambridge, MA, USA |
| Paolo Migone | Editor, Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, Italy |
| Don Moss | Private Practice New York, NY, USA |
| Seth Pitman | Austen Riggs Center, USA |
| Christopher S. Rigling | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Peter L. Rudnytsky | University of Florida, USA |
| Matthew Shaw | Yale School of Medicine, USA |
| Joyce Slowchower | Hunter College, USA |
| Michelle Stephens | Rutgers University System Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice |
| Beverly Stoute | Emory University, USA |
| Tom Wooldridge | Golden Gate University, USA |
| Lynn Yonack | Berkshire Psychoanalytic Institute |
| Elaine Zickler | Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, USA |
| Thomas Barrett | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Cabaniss Deborah | Columbia University, USA |
| Ralph Fishkin | Thomas Jefferson University, USA |
| Arden Rothstein | Private Practice, USA |
| Richard Tuch | New Center for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Stephen Anen | Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, USA |
| Andrew Asibong | Private Practice, UK |
| George Bermudez | Antioch University, USA |
| David Eng | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Katie Gentile | John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA |
| Dorothy Holmes | Private Practice, USA |
| Joseph Reynoso | Private Practice, USA |
| Pratyusha Tummala-Narra | Boston University, USA |
| Christina Baker-Kline | |
| Amy Bloom | |
| Lisa Gornick | |
| Matthew Klam | |
| Timothy Kreider | |
| Alice McDermott | |
| Bill Roorbach | |
| Aria Sloss | |
| Meg Wolitzer | |
| Mary Zuravleff |
| John Auerbach | Nova Southeastern University College of Psychology, USA |
| Karen J. Gilmore | Private Practice, USA |
| Rona Knight | Berkshire and Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Linda Mayes | Yale University, CT, USA |
| Pamela Meersand | Columbia University, USA |
| Judy Yanof | Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, USA |
| Ariane Bazan | Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium |
| Barton Blinder | Private Practice, USA |
| Charles Jaffe | Private Practice, USA |
| Josh Kellman | The University of Chicago Psychiatry, USA |
| Norman Kohn | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Richard Lane | University of Arizona, USA |
| David Moore | Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas, USA |
| Andrei Novac | University of California at Irvine, USA |
| Mark Solms | University of Cape Town Neuroscience Institute, South Africa |
| Wes Alwan | |
| Daniel Butler | University of California Santa Cruz, USA |
| Umi Chong | Contemporary Freudian Society, USA |
| Sean M. Dowdy | University of Oslo, USA |
| Andi P. Eliza-Christie | International Psychotherapy Institute, USA |
| Nadine Obeid | William Alanson White Institute, USA |
| Jyoti M. Rao | San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Timothy Sawyier | Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, USA |
| Morris N. Eagle | Adelphi University, Garden City, USA |
| Susannah Heschel | Dartmouth College, USA |
| Jonathan Lear | University of Chicago, USA |
| Bonnie E. Litowitz, 2014-2018 | Private Practice, USA |
| Peter J. Loewenberg | University of California Los Angeles, USA |
| Bonnie J. Buchele | |
| Julio G. Calderon | |
| Sarah Lusk | |
| Daniel Prezant | |
| Sally Rosenberg | |
| Caroline Sehon | |
| Beverly Stoute | Emory University, USA |
| Jeffrey Taxman | |
| Mitchell Wilson | San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Harold P. Blum, 1973-1983 | |
| John Frosch, 1953-1972 | |
| Steven T. Levy, 2004-2013 | |
| Bonnie E. Litowitz, 2014-2018 | Private Practice, USA |
| Arnold D. Richards, 1994-2003 | |
| Theodore Shapiro, 1984-1993 | |
| Mitchell Wilson, 2019 - 2023 | San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, USA |
| Jennifer Mahar | Origin Editorial, LLC, USA |
Editorial Guidelines for Original Papers
The editors at JAPA offer the following guidelines for authors regarding Original Paper submissions.
1. Does your submission clearly and concisely state the proposal or argument in your manuscript?
2. Have you done a thoughtful and targeted review of the literature that is pertinent to your thesis?
3. Does your submission state the new contribution you hope your work will make to our discipline?
4. Have you anticipated criticisms or alternative interpretations of your argument and the data you have assembled?
If you are struggling with answering any of these questions, we encourage you to return to the current draft of your text for further work.
Editorial Guidelines for Essays
JAPA publishes different forms of writing that fall under the category Essay: memoir, auto-theory, long and short-form pieces. Essays do not presume to offer original research and therefore are not categorized as Original Papers.
Key features of an Essay include:
1) In-depth creative exploration of a question, concept, or theme germane to psychoanalysis.
2) Relevant scholarship that supports or enhances the paper's argument or theme.
3) Writing that is well-organized and compelling.
Editorial Guidelines for Book Reviews
JAPA Review of Books welcomes your submissions to our section. There are several ways that you can make a contribution:
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We would be pleased to hear from you if you have a book that you would like us to consider for review (bookreviewsjapa@gmail.com). Please tell us about the book and why you think it is of interest to our readership. Please suggest three possible reviewers who might have expertise in the topic and are excellent writers.
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We will review your manuscript and let you know of our determination, whether it is accepted for publication, may need revision, or may not be a fit for JAPA. Below you will find our criteria for Single Book Reviews and for Book Essays.
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If you do not have a particular book in mind but would like to be considered as a reviewer email us at bookreviewsjapa@gmail.com. Submita single-page writing sample that illustrates your reviewing style. This can be an excerpt from a previous review or a new piece specifically crafted for this purpose. Your writing sample will help us align the tone and content of our section.
Review of a Single Book (approximately 2,000 words)
We want you to regard your review as a way to engage in dialogue with both the book’s author and its potential readership. Include a critical assessment of the book: what does the author provide that is new, noteworthy, or a significant contribution to literature in the field? Please do not provide a chapter-by-chapter summary. Instead, you should structure your review in a way that will engage the reader’s interest in your writing – i.e., as thoughtful commentary on one book and its topic. If you feel the author has missed something relevant to the topic, please feel free to explain. We are looking to the reviewer to engage in a constructive dialogue with the book, the reader and the author – one that will present a new understanding of the topic or raise divergent viewpoints. If you find that you have nothing positive to say about a book that you have agreed to review, please let us know before you begin writing; we may choose to re-assign the book, or not to run a review at all.
Book Essay (two or more books; please try not to exceed 4,000 words)
For a book essay, the writer is asked to deepen a reader’s understanding of a topic common to two or more books. Your essay should show how target books work in conversation with one another; how they inform current thinking about their topic, shed light on a new idea, or introduce divergent views. This format is intended to give the reviewer brevity to express a personal perspective, while highlighting book authors’ points of view. Please do not exceed 4,000 words; if reviewing several books and you need more space, please confer with us as you work.
General Considerations
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We encourage you to make your writing personal; use your own voice (e.g., “I,” not “this reader”).
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Feel free to invoke other books, creative works, or concepts, when you feel these will help readers to understand the content of the book you are reviewing, or the topic of a book essay. Works cited in your reference list need not be limited to your target book(s).
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As you set about work on your piece, please let us know if you’d like to discuss questions of scope, format, etc.
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Please keep in mind that we’ll want to see a draft of your review within four or five months of the date of assignment.
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In preparing your draft, please consult the enclosed JAPA Style Sheet -- and please don’t forget to include biographical and contact information!
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Once you’ve sent an initial draft to us, we’ll reply with any editorial suggestions, questions, or concerns we may have. We’ll ask that you respond with a new draft as quickly as possible, so we can pass your piece on to JAPA’s copy editor and move it toward publication.
We require that proper credit be given to anyone who has made a substantial contribution to any piece submitted to JAPA. According to our publisher’s ethical guidelines:
. . . all parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Any contributors with roles that do not amount to a substantive contribution . . . should be listed in the Acknowledgements.” (SAGE Publishing, https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/credit)
Peer Review
Manuscripts submitted to JAPA are read for significance, originality, merit of argumentation, and quality of writing by three or more reviewers from the JAPA Board. A decision letter and reviewers' comments will be sent to the corresponding author. Please note that JAPA conforms to a double-anonymized peer-review process. We strive to come to a decision about a manuscript within six-eight weeks of submission.
Confidentiality
Authors must take appropriate measures to preserve confidentiality and protect patient anonymity within the ethical framework of the psychoanalytic profession (or of their own profession, if other than psychoanalytic). The publication of clinical material continues to be essential to the growth of individual analysts as well as to the advancement of the analytic profession as a whole. Yet, the need to communicate our clinical experiences complicates the ethical requirement to preserve the confidentiality of the clinical encounter. There exist several time-honored approaches to preserving confidentiality and to protecting the anonymity of the patient (and the privacy of anyone else involved), while maintaining the scientific integrity of a clinical publication: disguise, patient consent, the use of composites, the use of short clinical vignettes or of thumbnail sketches that can bring the clinical material alive while avoiding detailed disclosures entailed in traditional case presentations.
Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The method of preserving confidentiality must be chosen by the author on clinical considerations, and therefore tailored to the individual case (for a discussion of the specific set of issues generated by each approach see Gabbard, G. O. 2000. Disguise or Consent: Problems and Recommendations Concerning the Publication and Presentation of Clinical Material. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 81, 1071–1086; Kantrowitz, J. L. 2004. Writing about Patients: I. Ways of Protecting Confidentiality and Analyst's Conflicts over Choice of Method. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 52: 69-99; and Kantrowitz, J. L. 2006. Writing About Patients. Responsibilities, Risks, and Ramifications. New York: Other Press).
Authors are encouraged to carefully consider these alternatives when they prepare their manuscripts, and to give precedence to clinical concerns. If extensive clinical material is used, the author should include a clear statement regarding the method used to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of those discussed. This statement should appear in a footnote on the first page in your paper in which clinical material is mentioned.
Manuscript Preparation Guidelines
Manuscripts must conform to the style of the journal.
JAPA uses a double-anonymize peer-review process. All identifying information (author name(s), postal address, fax, e-mail address, phone number, as well as any acknowledgments) should be included on a title page uploaded separately into our submission system. Please also include on your title page a brief autobiographical statement listing the current professional, academic, and institutional titles, positions and affiliations for all authors. In the case of more than one author, make sure the corresponding author is clearly indicated. Please also supply at least 5 well-chosen key words on your title page; these key words should also be included in the Abstract.
All identifying information should be anonymized within the manuscript including in-text citations and author references. There should be no identifying information in your uploaded text.
Begin with a one-paragraph abstract, not to exceed 200 words, summarizing the essential contributions of the paper. Submissions should not exceed forty double-spaced pages in length (about 11,000 words), including the abstract, and should be formatted as follows: 1½-inch margins, left and right; all copy double-spaced, including abstract, references, footnotes, and extracts; footnotes numbered consecutively and located at the bottom of the page of text on which the superscript number appears (initial footnotes referring to the title of the paper or author do not carry a number). All pages of the manuscript are to be numbered.
All artwork, including charts, tables, figures, drawings, and photographs, is to be submitted to the publisher either as camera-ready copy or in a format that can be reproduced as a print-resolution graphical file. Final artwork in JAPA will measure no more than 4¼ inches in width and no more than 7 inches in height. The cost for any alteration in artwork will be borne by the author(s).
JAPA is primarily a black and white print journal but color printing is available for a fee. The first color image is $800 and each figure thereafter is $200 each.
The author is responsible for obtaining written permissions for material such as figures, tables, art, and extensive quotes taken directly—or adapted in minor ways—from another source, as is payment of any fees the copyright holder may require. Please provide your permission by uploading it to the submission system.
For reference style, consult articles in JAPA published after 1996 (from volume 45 on), noting punctuation, italics, use of capitals, small caps, items of information required, and their sequence. Note particularly that inclusive page numbers are required for journal articles and chapters of books.
Galatzer-Levy, R.M. (1995). Psychoanalysis and dynamical systems theory: Prediction and self similarity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 43:1085–1113.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.
Manuscripts should be submitted via https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/japa.
Files saved as MS Word are preferred, but conversion from other formats is possible. Submit revisions the same way, with a draft number and date clearly indicated on each version. IMPORTANT: Your original files are available to you when you upload your revised manuscript. Please delete any redundant files before completing the submission. Your text and figure file(s) will be converted into HTML so that they can be easily viewed with a browser on the Internet. They will also be converted into a .PDF document so that they can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. The files in the .PDF document will be presented in the order specified. Please submit a cover letter detailing how your submission conforms to the editorial guidelines below.
Please note that only articles submitted to JAPA that are not under review at another journal, and that have not been previously published in print or electronically will be considered.
Editorial Office Contact
For questions or information regarding your manuscript, contact:
Jennifer Mahar
Managing Editor
jennifer@origineditorial.com
617-314-9100
Thank you for your interest in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.