Forthcoming Special Issues

SPECIAL ISSUE ON "DEFENSE MECHANISMS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY"

Guest Editors
Mariagrazia Di Giuseppe, Ph.D., Department of History, Humanities and Society, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
Vera Békés, Ph.D., Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, USA
John Christopher Perry, M.P.H. M.D., Department of Psychiatry, McGill University at the Institute of Community & Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, QC, Canada

Introduction

Defense mechanisms are automatic psychological processes that protect individuals from anxiety related to internal conflicts and internal and external stressors. Defense mechanisms are relevant indicators of psychological functioning across the lifespan and play an important role in adaptation to distress and to external reality. The importance of defenses has been extensively studied, with a general agreement on the association between adaptive defensive functioning and well-being. Maladaptive or inadequate defenses are associated with increased psychiatric symptoms, personality disorders, impairment in occupational functioning, problematic relationships, passivity in psychotherapy, and poorer physical health outcomes. 
Examining defense mechanisms in action within clinical settings has the potential to help identifying patients’ defensive profiles and detect changes that underlie successful treatment outcomes. There are now well-established measures of defense mechanisms that reflect the empirically validated hierarchy of defensive functioning and adaptiveness: Changes in defense mechanisms during psychotherapy provide information about patient responses to treatment and may be used as outcome indicators of patient adjustment.

In this special issue, Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome (RIPPPO) is inviting manuscripts reporting salient research findings and/or theoretical reflection on defense mechanisms and their impact on mental health and adaptation. Contributions coming from different theoretical perspectives and therapeutic approaches are welcome.

The special issue will include interdisciplinary scholarship, from a range of theoretical orientations (i.e. dynamic, cognitive, systemic, psychoanalysis, etc.), that has investigated defense mechanisms in both clinical and non-clinical populations. Research investigating the impact of defensive functioning on psychological well-being, symptoms, treatment, and outcome are welcome. Relevant studies that bridge various psychological constructs with defense mechanisms will also be considered. Specifically, we invite authors to submit quantitative and qualitative empirical studies, methodological works, clinical studies papers, systematic review and meta-analyses that address a clearly defined question or issue in one of the following aspects of research:

  1. progressive changes in defensive functioning over the course of psychotherapy;
  2. comparisons between defense mechanisms and other aspects of mental functioning;
  3. influence of defense mechanisms (i.e., prediction, moderation, mediation) on therapy effectiveness;
  4. therapeutic factors that improve patients’ defensive functioning;
  5. defense mechanisms in mental health professionals;
  6. developmental trajectories of defense mechanisms;
  7. associations between defense mechanisms and emotion regulation

Manuscripts have to comply with general RIPPPO editorial rules (see the guide for authors). All authors who are interested to apply in this Special issue must submit to RIPPPO website  within May 31st 2025, a file with: paper title, author(s) with affiliation(s), 3-5 keywords, corresponding author’s address, email and phone number, and a 250 words structured abstract (introduction, methods, results, discussion).
Please specify: “RIPPPO SPECIAL ISSUE ON DEFENSE MECHANISMS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY.” 

Timelines and deadlines 
Call for abstract: 31st May 2025
Acceptance communication: 10th June 2025
Call for articles: 31st July 2025
Scheduled publication: November 2025

Article Processing Charges
Authors are NOT required to pay at the moment of submission. After the Editor’s acceptance letter of the Manuscript, the Managing Editor will guide the Authors through the payment procedure. No article will be published before waiver or payment.

 

About RIPPPO

Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome (RIPPPO; IF 2023: 1.6) is an online, open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal published by the Italian Area Group of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR Italy Area Group). Its aim is to promote a fruitful communication between the Italian and International communities, enriching clinicians and researchers' mutual collaboration. RIPPPO welcomes high quality articles from any part of the world, concerning a variety of topics (e.g., psychotherapy process and outcome, diagnosis and assessment, psychopathology etc.), with different formats (e.g., reviews, empirical studies, methodological works, clinical studies) and from different epistemological, theoretical and methodological perspectives of the contemporary research in psychotherapy. Particular attention will be paid to works sensitive to the close interconnection between psychotherapy process and psychopathology, as well as theory and clinical practice; the focus on intensive case analysis; the study of the psychotherapies delivered within the different institutional settings and with attention to the interdisciplinary dialogue.

RIPPPO publishes three issues every year and provides immediate open access to its contents, on the basis of the principle that making research results freely available to researchers and practitioners supports a better exchange of knowledge.

RIPPPO adopts a two-phase peer-review procedure, to which only papers written in English are allowed and considered. Firstly, the Manuscript is read by the Editors for verifying its consistency with the aims, and the formal and content standards of the journal. Then, if the paper is suitable for publication, an Editor submits it to blind peer reviewing phase. The process of reviewing is intended as an opportunity to promote scientific exchange designed to guarantee a high scientific standard for the journal, as well as to provide Authors with the chance to improve the quality of their manuscripts. This journal utilizes the PORTICO system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

RIPPPO has been included for indexing in Scopus, Web of Science (Clarivate), Pubmed and PsycInfo.