Feb 28, 2009

 

January 17, 2009, New York
 

 

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Present were the following:

Name	Journal
Valerie Angel	International Forum of Psychoanalysis
Gina Atkinson	The Psychoanalytic Quarterly
Alan Barnett	Psychoanalytic Review
Alice Brand Bartlett	Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing Board
Anthony Bass	Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
Mark Blechner	Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Werner Bohleber	Psyche (Germany)
Carlo Bonomi	International Forum of Psychoanalysis
Patrizio Campanile	Rivista di Psicoanalisi (Italy)
Jorge Canestri	Psicoanalisi (Italy)
William Curlette	The Journal of Individual Psychology
Muriel Dimen	Studies in Gender and Sexuality
Giselle Galdi	American Journal of Psychoanalysis
Richard Gottlieb	Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
Elliot Jurist	Psychoanalytic Psychology
Laura Kleinerman	Journal of Child Psychotherapy
Deborah Pines	Psychoanalytic Perspectives
Peter Rudnytsky	American Imago

Peter Rudnytsky, Co-Chair, welcomed all present. After brief self-introductions, Peter announced that partici-pants are free to raise issues of their choice in this forum, and noted that he had in mind two agenda items: (1) the possibility of awarding an editorial prize, and (2) a forum or discussion group sponsored by this group at the American Psychoanalytic Association Meetings in January 2010. He also mentioned other possible topics of discussion: future Chairs and/or Co-Chairs of ICEPJ; patient confidentiality in journal writing; and electronic publishing.

Muriel Dimen asked what the criteria would be for deciding on the recipient of an editorial prize, and Peter noted there would need to be a decision about whether a single issue or a year’s worth of issues would be taken into account. Mark Blechner stated that the Round Robin has a Q & A column on ethics, with a particular column to be devoted to ethical concerns of journal Editors. For example, there have been instances of an Editor insisting that all authors whose papers are published must cite the Editor’s own works. Also, some feel that an Editor should never publish his or her own articles in the journal for which he or she is responsible. Peter noted that these are interesting issues for this group to become involved with.

Muriel expressed interest in discussing journals’ acceptance and rejection rates of manuscripts submitted for possible publication, noting that this may be variable depending on whether manuscripts are solicited. Peter agreed that this would be another interesting area for this group to discuss.

In response to an inquiry about electronic publishing and in particular what the Journal of the American Psy-choanalytic Association’s experience has been in that regard, Richard Gottlieb said that JAPA has had a striking increase in institutional subscriptions since it went online with current contents; they have essentially doubled. This has to do with the outreach of JAPA’s publisher, Sage, he continued. An added benefit for JAPA is that Sage tracks the number of online hits for each article and records which articles are cited the most. As far as Richard is aware, there has not been much change in the number of individual subscriptions or hard-copy subscriptions since the institution of online availability.

Anthony Bass indicated that Psychoanalytic Dialogues has been looking at the possibility of online publication and how this would be financed, given that electronic publication is not necessarily as financially advantageous for journals as hard copy sales are. Giselle Galdi stated that it is necessary for journals to negotiate favorable arrangements with publishers; for example, the American Journal of Psychoanalysis had trouble getting its former publisher to increase revenues and consequently switched to a new publisher, Palgrave Macmillan. This arrangement has worked out much better, she added.

Alice Brand Bartlett commented that Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing has continued to expand and currently has more than 8000 members. The details of PEP’s arrangements with journals vary depending on when the journal initially contracted with PEP. The latest PEP-Web version has been improved, and the pay-per-view feature is being expanded. Concern was expressed by those present about a potential drop in paper subscriptions once electronic access is more widely available. In response to this, Mark stated that Contemporary Psychoanalysis has been posting the lead article of each issue online, where it is available free to anyone (not just subscribers), and that this has turned out to be an enhancement that has motivated others to subscribe. Elliot Jurist added that Division 39 is doing this as well.

Mark noted that the distinction between online publishing and print publishing is becoming more vague. For example, he has been approached by authors who have published a paper in an online forum, but would still like to submit it for consideration for publication in print in Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Peter commented that he has experienced the reverse situation, i.e., he was asked for permission to post a previously published American Imago article online. What about authors who want to post their upcoming or previously published articles on their own websites? Some authors seem unaware of the implications of putting their material on blogs, Giselle commented. Each journal must set its own policies about these issues, Peter observed. Gina At-kinson pointed out that journals can exert some influence over electronic postings of articles on sites other than their own by asking each author to sign a licensure agreement before the journal releases a PDF of a published article to him or her.

Along these lines, Alice suggested that publishing guidelines might be an appropriate topic for a workshop for potential authors. She noted that some authors are unaware that they should not send the same paper to two different publications at the same time, for example. Peter agreed; he asked the group what other topics might be relevant and worthwhile for next year’s APsaA registrants and would be most likely to attract attendance. Werner Bohleber raised the idea of focusing on how to write a paper. Alice added the question of how much editing an author can reasonably expect from a journal, and advice to authors on handling rejections. Peter men-tioned the possibility of doing a collaborative edit on screen. There could be a break-out into small groups, Alice suggested, with representatives of different journals from different perspectives answering questions specific to that journal. This could be done with or without prearranged appointment times with particular journal repre-sentatives, Peter noted.

Elliot commented that the standards for editorial readers’ reports are more variable in psychoanalysis than in some fields, noting that psychoanalytic reports tend to be arbitrary and may sometimes be dismissive. How can authors be helped to develop their work in these circumstances? Muriel stated that she leads writing groups and is interested in teaching writing, though she is unsure how much a single two-hour workshop could accomplish in this regard. A sample paper or papers could be precirculated, Mark suggested, for discussion and critique during the workshop; Richard stated he feels this format would be of interest. Would it be preferable for a two-and-one-half hour workshop to focus on a single paper, Peter asked, or to be split into one-on-one, half-hour meetings?

Mark proposed that, to start with, there could be a one-hour workshop that would be a sort of basic meeting with an opportunity for participants to ask questions. Jorge Canestri commented that he knows of similar workshops that have taken place at international conferences, including the presentation and discussion of papers in light of criteria for acceptance, and that in one experiment, a paper by Wilfred Bion was circulated anonymously – and ended up being rejected by all present. Journals differ in their criteria for publication, he pointed out. He also noted that this group does not currently have representatives of French, Scandinavian, or Latin American jour-nals, to which Peter replied that he has attempted to get the word out to as many potential attendees as possible, and is grateful for those who have been involved.

Peter also mentioned payment of dues to this organization and read a list of journals that paid last year. Those who have not already paid for 2009 are asked to mail him a check for $25.00, made out to Peter Rudnytsky, at the following address: Peter Rudnytsky, Department of English, P.O. Box 117310, University of Florida, Gai-nesville, FL, 32611, U.S.A. To arrange payment in currency other than U.S. dollars, please e-mail Peter at: plr@english.ufl.edu.

Peter inquired who among those present would be willing to co-chair the January 2010 workshop. After discus-sion, Mark and Richard agreed to do so. They will work out the timing of the workshop with APsaA’s Program Committee. The general thinking is that it will be of two and one-half hours’ duration and consist of a plenary, perhaps in panel format, followed by break-out groups to address different subjects. (The latter may require scheduling of additional rooms, it was noted.) There was a discussion of whether the focus should be on a single paper that would undergo a sort of review process in the workshop, and whether or not the author of the paper should be present for this; or, alternatively, perhaps a paper could be chosen that has already been accepted for publication and undergone editorial revisions. Several members present, including Anthony and Muriel, agreed to participate. The tentative working title of the workshop is “Writing for Journal Publication.”

Carlo Bonomi raised the issue of patient confidentiality in journal publishing and whether or not factual details of clinical cases should be changed to protect patients’ identities. Mark Blechner stated that he favors omission of details in the service of disguise, as opposed to introducing false information. Peter remarked that the issue of informed consent could be a workshop topic for this group to consider.

Peter asked who among those present would be available to attend a meeting of this group in Chicago in July 2009, in conjunction with the International Psychoanalytical Association Meetings. Although it is unclear how many members of this group will be in Chicago at that time, Werner offered to investigate scheduling a room in case it is feasible to hold another ICEPJ meeting at that time.

Respectfully submitted,

Gina Atkinson, M.A.
Managing Editor
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly

Information was sent by ECPP President Mikhail Reshetnikov - member of ICEPJ,
Editor in Chief of the Psychoanalytic Bulletin (Russia)

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