Aim and Scope of Reformulation (1)

Hepple, J., Lloyd, J., 2010. Aim and Scope of Reformulation. Reformulation, Winter, p.45.

Reformulation considers articles on CAT practice and theory, as well as debates and developments within CAT, letters, poems, book reviews, art works and adverts relevant to CAT. Contributions by users of CAT are particularly welcome. The opinions expressed in this journal, whether editorials or otherwise, do not necessarily represent the official view of the Association for Cognitive Analytic Therapy and ACAT accepts no responsibility for the content.

Submission

Articles should be submitted electronically via ACAT to reformulation@acat.me.uk. Articles are only accepted at the discretion of the editors.

Guidance for Submitting Articles

A very wide format is acceptable for submitting material. Articles may be between 250, typically 2000, and exceptionally and occasionally, up to 5,000 words. Letters and book reviews should not normally exceed 1000 words. If substantial clinical material is used, it should be fully anonymised and signed consent forms must be submitted too which demonstrate that the client (or their proxy, in the case of someone too impaired to give informed consent), from whom the material is drawn, has read and agreed the article.

References

All citations must be referenced in the text with the authors’ names, followed by the date of their publication, unless there are three or more authors, when only the first author’s name is quoted followed by et al. References at the end of the paper should be listed in alphabetical order with an unabbreviated article, book or journal title, in Harvard style.

The end of each submission should have a brief biography of the author / authors. In keeping with developing the dialogical nature of Reformulation, an email address from the author could also be published to enable discussion.

Assessment and Editing Process

All material submitted to the journal will be assessed. Submissions may go out to review by either an expert in that particular field or by someone unfamiliar with that particular field who can highlight how accessible the content is.

Responses Include Two Formats:

1. Corrections. These refer to presentation issues, such as points of grammar, clear style, concise content, and correct punctuation and spelling; to concepts that appear to be used poorly, incorrectly or inappropriately and to disagreement about facts. Ethical issues are also included, such as requirements to demonstrate adequate consent has been obtained and to model either good enough therapy or a discussion about therapeutic shortcomings. Corrections must be adhered to, with through authors making those required changes.
2. Comments. A comment is aimed to offer something that the author has not considered, to develop thinking. Comments do not replace the author’s voice with the editor’s and so do not have to be accepted by the author. Comments can develop into interesting discussions which editors may wish to publish, where further thinking has productively led to a deeper understanding or appreciation of an issue relevant to CAT. Editors may also invite readers to continue a discussion, either directly with the author or in a forum that could be published in a subsequent edition.

The editors may approach people on an individual basis to ask them if they wish to review anonymously or comment on specific submissions.

Editing Benchmarks

1. Articles can be theoretical, polemical and provocative putting forward a particular view point, but need to be coherent, following a logical train of thought and not meander or offer redundant (repetitive) material.
2. Articles have at least one original idea or novel application of an idea; they offer something new to the CAT reader.
3. Papers are well structured, with sub-headings if necessary.
4. Scientific assertions are either referenced and backed up by data, or described tentatively and not as hard fact.
5. References tie up with the text.
6. There is an adequate synthesis of findings or conclusions drawn from the material presented.
7. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, elegance and appropriate phrasing all good enough (editors are happy to help with this).

Jason Hepple and Julie Lloyd