JMFT 2015 Best Article of the Year Award: Seeing the Best in Our Colleagues

Abstract

EditorAs I write this, the U.S. presidential primary season is in full swing and March Madness (the U.S. college basketball championships) is beginning too. There is plenty of testosterone-fueled, mean-spirited rhetoric and chest thumping in the air. Bullying and in-your-face victory dancing have become something of a trend. To paraphrase Eugene Robinson, the Washington Post columnist: If America was a person, you would sedate it and maybe even have it committed. Indeed, societal incivility seems to be on the increase, diminishing us all (Piercy et al., 2013).In contrast, our profession stands for a greater good because our job is to lift up, not tear down. As marriage and family therapists, we try to help family members see the best in themselves and in one another. In this issue, we celebrate this by honoring those in our field. It is my pleasure to again tip our collective hats to the best of the best-the best JMFT articles of 2015.This is the third year of our emerging tradition honoring one or two articles for their overall quality, meaningfulness, creativity, and promise to advance our field. For 2015, my editorial council and I again went through an elaborate nomination and rating process to determine the JMFT 2015 Best Article of the Year and, again, came up with two winners. One is The Norway Couple Project: Lessons Learned by Jacqueline Sparks of the University of Rhode Island. In this article, Sparks narrowed the research/practice gap by translating the results of five large studies into specific guidelines for routine, eclectic practice. Her research-informed template for improving couple therapy outcomes included attention to client feedback, the therapeutic alliance, couple goals assessment, and therapist experience in couple therapy (Sparks, 2015). Below are a few comments from JMFT Editorial Council members regarding this article:• This article does an excellent job of bridging the gap between research and practice. The