Aims and Scope Editorial Board Contacts + Address Referee Ranking Indexing

Correspondence: Paolo Migone, M.D., Via Palestro 14, 43123 Parma PR, Italy, tel./fax +(39) 0521-960595, E-Mail migone@unipr.it; Web site in English: www.psicoterapiaescienzeumane.it/english.htm

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane [Psychotherapy, Humanities, and Social Sciences] is an interdisciplinary quarterly journal. Founded in 1967, it is currently co-edited by Pier Francesco Galli, M.D., Marianna Bolko, M.D., and Paolo Migone, M.D. It is by far and away the most widely circulated journal in the field in Italy, and also one of the oldest. It is indexed by various international databases such as PsycINFO (Psychological Abstracts), Psychoanalytic Abstracts, EMBASE (Ex¬cerpta Medica), EMCare, Scopus, Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences), PASCAL (INIST), etc. The project Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane was one of the original aims and methods of the "Milan Group for the Advancement of Psychotherapy", which, has been led by Pier Francesco Galli, M.D. since 1960. In 1970 the Group was renamed Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane (like the journal, which was founded by Pier Francesco Galli in 1967) after the Third World Congress of Psychotherapy which was organized by the Group of the same name. The precise aim, which is still valid today, was to meet the needs of professionals involved in psychotherapy and related fields along three fundamental lines. First of all, the journal wanted to fill the gap between the Italian and international mental health communities - the Italian situation at the time was characterized by widespread cultural delay (university courses and degrees in psychology didn't exist, psychiatry was still under the influence of neurology, etc.). Secondly - and this is an important aspect - there was a need to provide a historical and critical filter for all the foreign professional culture that was being imported, in order to avoid the flat and automatic absorption of foreign cultural models. Thirdly, the journal was designed to examine mental health professionals' training processes in light of the link between clinical practice and theoretical construction. This was summarized in the editorial of the first issue (no. 1, 1967): «Insecurity, the daily feeling of the psychotherapist at work, is responsibly taken as an interplay between conflicting poles within the human sciences». In light of this, a real and not "academic" interdisciplinary approach is still the goal of a professional work with a strong social impact, in opposition to the widespread "parallel tolerance" and ecumenical opportunism that characterises our field. The Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane project also included several book series founded by Pier Francesco Galli, M.D., such as the "Library of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology" (founded in 1959, total 87 titles), published by the Milanese publisher Feltrinelli, and "Program Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychotherapy" (founded in 1964, more than 250 titles), published by Boringhieri of Turin. Included in these series were translations of the most important international classics in psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy, many of which formed the backbone of the professional culture of generations of Italian mental health professionals. In line with these premises, the journal Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane publishes psychoanalytic articles alongside papers from other disciplines, such as psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, education science, and history. Exponents of these disciplines have been represented on the journal's editorial board since its foundation. In the 1980s, the publication of a series of columns emphasised the journal's role as a ''service-provider'' to the Italian mental health community. These columns have included: "Classics of psychoanalytic research" (30 classic papers written between 1927 and 1965 and published between 1989 and 1999); "Clinical cases" (a separate column since 1987 under which many complete clinical cases have been published and discussed by authors from different psychotherapy schools); "Book reviews" (a separate column since 1984); "Traces. Mummia ridens" (since 2004; a reconstruction of the history of Italian psychoanalysis and psychotherapy from the theoretical and sociological perspective); "Journals" (since 1984, with contents and reviews of selected articles from the field's main national and international journals; since 2006, there has also been an annual lengthy comment on each journal under review). Further information on the history and overall aims of the Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane group is available at psicoterapia e scienze umane presentaz . The journal's home page is psicoterapia e scienze umane