Editorial

Readers may be aware that negotiations have been taking place between the APP and Taylor & Francis, publishers. In this context, I would like to offer some editorial comment and clarification.

Although the final contract has yet to be signed, the Council of the APP have approved in principle a proposal to work with Taylor & Francis in the production and distribution of the Journal. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy will of course continue to be owned by the APP.

This decision was taken for a number of reasons, but in a nutshell, to try to ensure the Journal's future. The market for journals has become increasingly competitive in recent years, with a huge proliferation of titles devoted to psychotherapy and related fields. None, however shares our particular emphasis on the applications of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the public sphere. Authors now have a range of journals to which they can submit their papers and we have to try to ensure that we attract the best quality and most appropriate of these. Circulation is one aspect of the matter. Authors understandably wish to write for the widest possible readership and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy has a relatively small circulation outside of the APP itself. The reason for this is simple; it has never been publicised or marketed. Neither, for that matter has the APP itself.

Another issue … the need to become part of the citation index system, which would enable the university sector to value us properly, and would encourage those colleagues with academic posts to publish with us. To be considered by the citation indexes, we will need to move to the production of four issues per year, instead of the current three. We plan to do this in 2003.

Taylor & Francis is one of the oldest and largest publishers of journals, owning both Routledge and Carfax, amongst other well-known names. They currently publish the Journal of Child Psychotherapy and many many other journals in the field. In addition to producing Psychoanalytic Psychothe