Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology
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Print ISSN: 1932-9261
Online ISSN: 1932-927X
2024 Impact Factor: 1.4
2024 CiteScore: 3.6
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The Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (JCSP), a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal, addresses psychological care and clinical issues of athletes, exercisers, and other performers. Clinical sport psychology represents an integration of therapeutic strategies and mental skills training approaches for performance, health, and overall well-being.
JCSP is published quarterly, in March, June, September, and December.
Mission
The mission of the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (JCSP) is to disseminate scholarly, peer-reviewed work that integrates therapeutic strategies and performance enhancement approaches to best serve athletes, exercisers, and other performers. JCSP is designed to provide practical recommendations to mental health providers and applied sport psychology practitioners, stimulate provocative discussions, promote best practices and intervention strategies, and disseminate applied research findings.
Target Audience
JCSP serves as a resource for clinicians and other professionals who work with athletes, exercisers, and performers. Articles published in JCSP also inform the work of sport and exercise psychology scholars.
Ethics Policy
Please visit the Ethics Policy page for information about the policies followed by JCSP.
Editor
Justine J. Reel
University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA
Associate Editors
J.D. DeFreese
University of North Carolina, USA
Edson Filho
Boston University, USA
Editors Emeriti
Frank L. Gardner, Touro College, USA (Founding Editor: 2007–2013)
Don Marks, Kean University, USA (2013–2017)
Editorial Board
Mitch Abrams, Learned Excellence for Athletes, USA
Jessyca Arthur-Cameselle, Western Washington University, USA
Shelby Baez, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Itay Basevitch, Texas A&M University – Kingsville, USA
Marcelo Bigliassi, Florida International University, USA
Matthew Bird, University of Lincoln, UK
Jedediah E. Blanton, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
Jordan Blazo, Louisiana Tech University, USA
Chris Carr, Green Bay Packers, USA
Jennifer Carter, The Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center, USA
Jenny Conviser, Ascend Consulting, USA
Selenia di Fronso, E-campus University, Italy
Brad Donohue, University of Nevada, USA
Peter J. Economou, Rutgers University, USA
Robert Eklund, Florida State University, USA
Teresa B. Fletcher, Adler University, USA
Brad Foltz, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, USA
Frank L. Gardner, Kean University, USA
Steve Gonzalez, Dartmouth College, USA
Recep Gorgulu, Bursa Uludag University, Türkiye
Christy Greenleaf, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, USA
Michael Gross, Princeton University, USA
Michael C. Grugan, Northumbria University, UK
Henrik Gustafsson, Karlstads Universitet, Sweden
Christine M. Habeeb, East Carolina University, USA
James L.W. Houle, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, USA
Jacob Levy, The University of Tennessee, USA
Lauren Loberg, National Football League, USA
Tobias Lundgren, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Charles Maher, Rutgers University, USA
Don Marks, Kean University, USA
Maya Miyairi, DePaul University, USA
Zella Moore, Touro University, USA
Kelli Moran-Miller, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA
Trent Petrie, University of North Texas, USA
Les Podlog, Université de Montréal, Canada
Carrie Scherzer, Mount Royal University, Canada
Lindsey H. Schroeder, University of North Carolina Wilmington, USA
Chris Selby, Springfield College, USA
Terilyn C. Shigeno, Adler University, USA
Sonya SooHoo, University of California, San Francisco, USA
Richard Eirikur Tahtinen, University of Akureyri, Iceland
Amanda Tierney, McCallum Place, The Victory Program, USA
J. Jordan Utley, Pima Medical Institute, USA
Frank Webbe, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Karin Weman Josefsson, Halmstad University, Sweden
Andrew Wolanin, Wolanin Consulting and Assessment Inc., USA
Mike Zito, Montclair State University, USA
Deanne Zotter, West Chester University, USA
Human Kinetics Staff
Tammy Miller, Senior Journals Managing Editor
Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Authors must submit their manuscripts through the journal’s ScholarOne online submission system. To submit, click the button below:
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Authorship Guidelines
The Journals Division at Human Kinetics adheres to the criteria for authorship as outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors:
Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Conditions a, b, c, and d must all be met. Individuals who do not meet the above criteria may be listed in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript.
Authors who use artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots, or image creators) in their work must indicate how they were used in the cover letter and the work itself. These technologies cannot be listed as authors as they are unable to meet all the conditions above, particularly agreeing to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
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Manuscript Guidelines
All Human Kinetics journals require that authors follow our manuscript guidelines in regards to use of copyrighted material, human and animal rights, and conflicts of interest as specified on our author resource page.
The Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (JCSP) is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal that provides practical and clinically relevant recommendations to mental health providers and practitioners in sport and exercise psychology, stimulates provocative discussions, promotes best practices and intervention strategies, and disseminates applied research findings that clearly show clinical relevance. The journal covers a broad range of topics. Some examples of relevant topics include psychology of injury, eating disorders, exercise and mental health, and substance use disorders. This journal highlights the clinical application of research findings within direct psychological service delivery spanning a wide range of clients and settings. JCSP recognizes the importance of diverse methodologies, varied treatment approaches, and the importance of having authors represent a wide range of perspectives around sport and exercise psychology. JCSP is international in scope and submissions from around the world and with diverse populations are encouraged.
Writing Style
All manuscript submissions should be written in accessible language, free of scientific jargon, and easily understood by a wide variety of clinicians and applied sport psychology practitioners. To align with the mission of JCSP, submissions should strive to demonstrate clinical relevance. Authors must follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed. 2020), and manuscripts should be void of typos and grammatical errors. Line numbering and 12-point font should be used for the double-spaced document.
Types of Papers
- Original research papers follow traditional format and section headings to demonstrate literature background, methods, results, and discussion. All methodologies are welcomed (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods). To follow ethical research procedures, prior institutional review board approval is expected. Applied and clinical relevance of the project should be clearly demonstrated throughout. Authors are strongly encouraged to include a clinical implications section in their manuscript to provide practical implications for clinicians or practitioners working in this field. Including abstract (150 word maximum), tables, and references these papers should not exceed 30 pages.
- Practice papers are applied pieces that may, for example, detail “best practice” prevention, intervention, or treatment approaches to addressing problems within sport, exercise, and performance contexts. Another option is a “lessons learned” paper that describes challenges and recommendations gleaned from implementing a program or intervention with athletes, exercisers, or performers. Papers may also use published research findings or theoretical frameworks to inform practice recommendations to clinicians, practitioners, and others working in the field. These papers should be 20 pages or less, including the abstract (150 word maximum), tables, and references.
- Commentaries are brief papers that describe hot topics in the field or argue for a particular viewpoint, therapeutic approach or strategies for navigating challenges that may arise in research and practice for sport and exercise psychology. Although these may be viewed as “opinion papers”, authors should tie ideas to the literature and employ a professional tone to ensure a compelling scholarly argument. These papers require abstracts (150 word maximum) and should not exceed 10 pages.
- Case illustration and therapeutic approach papers articulate a specific and in depth case to make a problem “come to life” and illustrate challenges and intervention strategies in a clinical or applied setting. If based on a real case, all identifying characteristics should be altered to protect the identity of the client(s). These papers must include a case narrative, case interpretation, and a clinical implications section with a recommended therapeutic approach supported by research. These papers require abstracts (150 word maximum) and should not exceed 7 pages.
- Around the World papers allow for more inclusive publishing of works by authors outside of North America who give voice to under-represented countries. While these submissions can follow any of the formats accepted by JCSP (original research, practice paper, commentary, or case illustration), all papers should clearly list the country in the title. A clinical implications section that elaborates on the role of sport and exercise psychology within the country being studied should be included as well as the implications of the work to influence the prominence of clinical sport psychology within the region. Editors may identify certain papers as eligible for this designation. Papers that appear in the “Around the World” section (which started in March 2021 issue of JCSP) are open access to allow for increased visibility and potential impact.
- Other types of papers, including reviews or letters to the editor, may be published from time to time. In most cases, these are commissioned, and specific instructions will be provided to authors for their preparation. All articles will still be submitted to a peer review process.
Most submission inquiries can be addressed by reading the guidelines. However, if you have questions not covered here, contact us.
Artwork Instructions
Figures should be created with drawing or illustration programs and submitted in PDF, EPS, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG format. Resolution of digital images should be 300 dpi at full size for photos and 600 dpi for line art. Figures submitted in color will be color online and will be grayscale in the printed issue. See our figure guidelines for more information.
Format tables using the “Table” function of your word processing program rather than aligning columns in text with tabs and spaces or using text boxes.
Review
Manuscripts will be acknowledged upon receipt and are reviewed by the Editor and/or Associate Editor and two reviewers in a double-anonymous review process. To facilitate anonymous review, please remove all identifying author information from the manuscript before submitting.
The review process normally takes 12–16 weeks for an initial decision and 8 weeks for revisions but may be affected by other factors such as volume of submissions, reviewer availability, or holidays and institution breaks. There are no page charges to contributors. Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication must transfer copyright to Human Kinetics, Inc. The transfer of copyright form will be provided to authors upon submission.
Desk Rejection Policy
Before full review, submissions are examined at the editorial level. If the Editor and an Editorial Board Member believe the submission has extensive flaws or is inconsistent with the mission and focus of the journal, the manuscript may receive a desk reject decision.
Individuals
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