A brief report on the status of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation

Each issue of the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation (JTD) opens with a signed editorial. These editorials, which I either write or invite, do not undergo formal peer review, although the authors and I almost always seek feedback from colleagues and make revisions accordingly prior to publication. The point of editorials is in part to allow the free expression of opinion. The opinions are always those of the authors of the editorials and do not represent the official stance of JTD, the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), or Taylor & Francis. By tradition, the first editorial of each volume is authored by the incoming president of ISSTD (e.g., Danylchuk, 2015). When we publish special issues, the opening editorial is by the guest editors of the special issue. For the final issue of each volume, I have assumed the responsibility and privilege of writing an editorial myself (e.g., Freyd, 2015) or with a coauthor (e.g., Smith & Freyd, 2014). Generally speaking, in my own editorials I report on the state of the journal as well as discuss one or two other topics that I consider of importance and, I hope, of interest to JTD readers.

In this issue of JTD—the fifth and final issue of Volume 17 (published in 2016)—I am departing from tradition by running side-by-side editorials. In this one, the first, I report on some of the recent developments and achievements of JTD. Immediately following this report is a second editorial on a topic I consider of importance and, I hope, of interest to JTD readers. That editorial—“Collusion, torture, and inequality: Understanding the actions of the American Psychological Association as institutional betrayal” (Gómez, Smith, Gobin, Tang, & Freyd, 2016/this issue)—is one that I have coauthored with four of my former and current doctoral students: Jennifer M. Gómez, Carly P. Smith, Robyn L. Gobin, and Shin Shin Tang. My hope is that readers of JTD will find relevance and meaning in each of these very different commentaries.

JTD continues to receive many excellent submissions. Our submission rate is robust, and that means I am selecting the most outstanding papers from a strong pool. In addition, we are having an impact on our field as well as increasing public awareness of critical topics in our field. One JTD editorial that appeared recently, “Steps to Strengthen Ethics in Organizations: Research Findings, Ethics Placebos, and What Works” by Kenneth Pope (2015), was the third most downloaded article of the Taylor & Francis open access articles published in 2015 and has attracted more than 11,000 downloads.

I am also very proud of our special issues. In 2014, we published a special issue on the topic of systemic trauma. The guest editors were Rachel E. Goldsmith, Christina G. Martin, and Carly P. Smith (see Goldsmith, Martin, & Smith, 2014). In 2015, special issue guest editors Julian Ford and Jennifer Gómez presented “Self-Injury and Suicidality: The Impact of Trauma and Dissociation” (see Ford & Gómez, 2015). This year, 2016, included the special section “Non-Pathologizing Approaches to Trauma Intervention” guest edited by Pamela Birrell, Kristen Reinhardt, and Marina Rosenthal (see Rosenthal, Reinhardt, & Birrell, 2016). Additional special issues are in preparation on the topics of perpetrator dynamics and trauma and dissociation in sexual minority populations. For more information about our special issues, see http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/jtd/special.html.

I am also pleased that for the fifth year in a row, and with the generous support of Taylor & Francis, we were able to give a cash award for a particularly outstanding publication in JTD. Bethany Brand once again generously served as chair of the awards committee. The Richard P. Kluft Award for the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 2015 Best Article went to Farina, Speranza, Imperatori, Quintiliani, and Della Marca (2015) for their article “Change in Heart Rate Variability After the Adult Attachment Interview in Dissociative Patients.” The awards committee noted about this winning paper, “This small but important study contributes to our understanding of dissociation by validating with a psycho-physiological experiment that attachment trauma is associated with differences or adaptations in biological stress regulation.”

In addition, the awards committee acknowledged two 2015 papers for honorable mention. The first runner-up was Myrick, Chasson, Lanius, Leventhal, and Brand (2015) for their paper “Treatment of Complex Dissociative Disorders: A Comparison of Interventions Reported by Community Therapists versus Those Recommended by Experts.” The awards committee observed the following about this paper:

At a time when there are still significant gaps in the treatment that therapists trained in treating complex trauma and dissociation offer and treatment that is delivered by therapists without trauma training, dissemination of the information in this study is an important step in orienting front-line therapists to what experts in the field consider best practices.

The second runner-up was Chaplo, Kerig, Bennett, & Modrowski (2015) for their article, “The Roles of Emotion Dysregulation and Dissociation in the Association Between Sexual Abuse and Self-Injury Among Juvenile Justice–Involved Youth.” The awards committee commented,

This paper deserves recognition due to the quality of the writing and the integration of material from the literature on abuse, dissociation, [posttraumatic stress disorder], nonsuicidal self-injury, and emotion dysregulation in a way that is relevant to scholars in all of these areas. The sample is a large, at-risk sample of youth in the juvenile justice system. The application of the model the authors propose to this population has real world applications for clinical practice.

JTD’s success would not be possible without the painstaking and thoughtful work of the editorial board, associate editors, and ad hoc reviewers. Thank you reviewers, editorial board, and associate editors—we truly could not do this without you. Also, I welcome Drs. Deidre Anglin, Annemarie Hulette, Heather MacIntosh, and Carly Smith to the editorial board for Volume 18 (to be published in 2017) and thank retiring members Drs. Carolyn Allard and Andrew Moskowitz, who have provided years of helpful reviewing. I also rely on the expert assistance of staff at Taylor & Francis as well as my local editorial assistant, Marina Rosenthal. I welcome Alec Smidt as a new editorial assistant. Smidt will be first training under and then taking over for Marina Rosenthal as a JTD editorial assistant, as Rosenthal will be completing her doctoral dissertation and starting an internship in clinical psychology.

I am very much looking forward to reading your submissions to JTD in the year ahead.