ABCT Journals

Guest Editors:

Jennifer Wachen, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Philip Held, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBTs) have demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness for a large variety of mental health problems. Traditionally, these interventions have been delivered with sessions conducted once per week. However, in recent years there has been growing interest in implementing CBTs in massed or intensive formats by increasing the frequency and duration of sessions. This practice has shown initial promise to address issues such as high dropout rates that may negatively impact treatment outcome, especially for the treatment of anxiety and trauma-related disorders.

With the range of intensive treatment delivery formats gaining popularity, more research is needed to demonstrate their efficacy and effectiveness. It will be important to better understand the potential benefits, such as mental health and physical health outcomes, as well as the financial impact of this delivery modality. As it is likely that these delivery formats will not work equally well for all individuals, it also will be important to understand for whom intensive interventions are most effective. Likewise, a better understanding of the limitations and risks associated with intensive treatments is needed. Finally, intensive treatments are currently delivered primarily in specialty clinics. Should this treatment modality turn out to be as promising as initial studies suggest, it will be imperative to examine barriers and facilitators to successful implementation in a variety of treatment settings, such as community clinics, private practices, technology augmentation, and large healthcare systems such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, including policy and payor-related factors.

The goals of this special issue, “Intensive Delivery of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies for Anxiety, Mood, and Trauma-Related Disorders” are to address the aforementioned gaps in the current literature. Specifically, we seek papers that:

• Detail how existing CBTs for anxiety, mood, and trauma-related disorders can be adapted and successfully delivered in massed or intensive treatment formats;
• Examine the effect of massed or intensive treatment delivery on factors including treatment engagement, completion, and patient and provider satisfaction;
• Evaluate and describe for whom and why intensively delivered CBTs do and do not work; and/or
• Examine implementation barriers and facilitators for intensive treatments in a variety of practice settings.

This special feature in C&BP has been reviewed and approved by senior members of the C&BP Editorial Board. Authors or author groups with questions about potential submissions are invited to contact the Guest Editor team identified above. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2021.

Those manuscripts selected for further consideration will be peer reviewed according to the journal’s usual editorial policies and procedures. Authors will be expected to revise manuscripts promptly. Accepted articles will be posted online within a short time frame of acceptance.

Manuscript Preparation & Submission:

As C&BP is a practitioner-oriented journal, it is necessary that research findings are presented with rich clinical descriptions, such as case vignettes, video demonstrations, and/or therapist guidelines. Author guide

Manuscript submission portal

Manuscript preparation and submission enquires: Bonnie Brown, RN (Editorial Assistant): [email protected]

Impact Statement:

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization and has had a significant indirect impact on the scholarly work of our CBT community. In addition, the killings of countless Black individuals (e.g., George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain) point to a longer standing public health concern—structural racism. These stressors have taken a toll on workforce productivity; for example, researchers with primary childcare responsibilities have had the additional strain of home-schooling and the incoming editorial team for C&BP recognizes that individuals in primary parenting roles will have had a reduction in their research productivity and writing output. The incoming editorial team for the journal therefore wishes to offer support and extra allowances to authors in this position and invites communications that include expression of need and requests for assistance. Those seeking assistance should submit a short (200 word) request to any of the Guest Editors listed above. This is a statement of relevance to the response to COVID-19 special series, but also applies to all new manuscript submissions to C&BP.