Editor's vale dictum: Activities, challenges and reflections from the line in between 2011 and 2023, Journal of Clinical Psychology

Abstract

My tenure as Editor of the Journal of Clinical Psychology ends with the final issue of this volume (its 79th). During my twelve-year term, our editorial team achieved several goals and experienced new challenges and trends from within our profession, and from changes and events in contemporary society. As discussed in my opening editorial (Elliott, 2011), I had several goals for the journal. I wanted to continue its position as an independent voice in professional psychology scholarship and research, receptive to innovative and creative studies that might be in early stages of development, focused on topics not yet "on the radar" of policymakers, or perhaps too unconventional to attract support from federal funding agencies. We would prioritize intervention studies, and we were open to those conducted in clinical settings with small sample sizes. I wanted to provide a home for papers that addressed understudied issues, and for those that addressed the challenges facing our profession in science, training, practice, and policy.To the best of my knowledge, my predecessors-Vladimir Pishkin, Larry E. Beutler, and Beverly E. Thorn-did not publish a final editorial to document their experiences, accomplishments, and challenges as editor of the journal.I think a vale dictum-a closing editorial-can be important to the history of the journal, specifically, and perhaps for the profession. In this farewell, I detail several of the activities and accomplishments over the past 12 volumes, and I will share some of the events and challenges we encountered. I will close with final observations that will, hopefully, stimulate further thought and action in response to current issues facing our profession and our scholarship.