Clinical Psychological Science

Clinical Psychological Science publishes advances in clinical science and provides a venue for cutting-edge research across a wide range of conceptual views, approaches, and topics. The Journal encompasses many core domains that have defined clinical psychology, but also boundary-crossing advances that integrate and make contact with diverse disciplines and that may not easily be found in traditional clinical psychology journals. Among the key topics are research on the underlying mechanisms and etiologies of psychological health and dysfunction; basic and applied work on the diagnosis, assessment, treatment, and prevention of mental illness; service delivery; and promotion of well-being.

This broadly based international Journal sits at the interface of clinical psychological science and other disciplines, publishing the best papers from the full spectrum of relevant science. The Journal welcomes empirical papers as well as occasional reviews and associated theoretical formulations addressing the following:

• Research from all areas of psychology and from all disciplines (e.g., genetics, neuroscience, psychiatry, public health, sociology) insofar as they relate to clinical psychology issues broadly conceived;
• Basic research on the psychological and related processes that are disrupted in psychopathology;
• Research on core areas of cognition, emotion, learning, memory, sensation, perception, and neuroscience that clearly addresses clinical phenomena;
• Research related to clinical issues at all levels of analysis (from genes and molecules to contexts and cultures), using the full range of behavioral and biological methods, and incorporating both human and non-human animal models;
• Research on specific clinical symptoms, syndromes, and diagnostic systems;
• Studies with clinical patient populations as well as studies using non-clinical or pre-clinical populations that are relevant to understanding clinical dysfunction;
• Basic and applied research relevant to clinical diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment;
• Research focusing on precursors and risk factors for dysfunction as well as protective factors and resources that promote resilience and adaptive functioning;
• Cultural and ethnic studies that advance our understanding of processes that relate to development of mental health or dysfunction; and
•  Sophisticated, cross-cutting, and novel methodological, statistical, and mathematical approaches that enable advances in research.

These examples and all such approaches are critical components of the Journal. However, the very nature of what is meant by cutting-edge and the rapid advances in methods of assessment mean that its scope cannot be fully enumerated. The key criterion is that the research directly inform some facet of clinical psychology.