The Association for Creativity in Counseling |Journal|

The Journal of Creativity in Mental Health

Dr. Thelma Duffey, Editor

JCMH is the Official Journal of The Association for Creativity in Counseling

Welcome to the homepage for the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, published by Routledge, The Taylor & Francis Group. Please refer to the Author Packet for instructions on manuscript submissions and guidelines for authors. In our journal you will find examples of research, theory, and practice related to creativity in counseling and relational movement in therapy. Each issue provides concrete, practical examples for applying creative counseling interventions in private practice, agency, and school settings. Manuscripts include practical applications for various cutting edge, creative interventions and relational practices. It also includes columns designed for sharing interventions and edited cinema and book reviews. The context of the journal includes contemporary clinical issues such as grief and loss, divorce, remarriage, physical health, trauma, gender, and LGBTQ issues. The journal will also explore issues from developmental and culturally dynamic contexts.

From the Editor

Welcome! And thank you for visiting the JCMH website. JCMH is the official journal of the Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC), the newest division within the American Counseling Association. This international journal is published with the goal of providing mental health professionals and graduate students in counseling with scholarship that addresses theory, research, and hands-on creative interventions in counseling practice. A particular goal of the ACC is to promote an understanding of relational development and creative practice within a diverse society. Authors include mental health professionals and graduate students in community counseling, school counseling, psychology, expressive therapies, psychiatry, social work, and others.

Each issue includes manuscripts on a wide range of creative interests. This issue, Vol. 3, Issue 1, is no exception, and includes topics such as music therapy and non-verbal communication; play therapy in the schools; depictions of gender and race in video games; a creative intervention for working with self-injuring behaviors; the metaphorical use of vampire films in counseling; a self-reflection on group dynamics; and a book review that discusses gender issues in grief counseling. Another goal of the JCMH is to encourage the publication efforts of graduate students. Volume 2, Issue 2 was devoted to manuscripts where graduate students served as first authors. Please see the Call for Papers for our next graduate student issue, Vol. 3, Issue 4. Deadline for submissions is July 15, 2008.

We invite each of you to submit manuscripts that reflect the inclusive, diverse, and relational goals of the journal. Manuscripts undergo a peer review process and reference such modalities as music, literature, theatre, drama, art, dance, and others. We are also interested in receiving submissions that describe energy psychologies and other complementary and alternative therapies that may impact our mental and physical well-being. Additionally, we welcome articles for our special feature columns on Creative Interventions, Creativity and the Cinema, Perspectives, and Creativity and Literature. Please refer to JCMH issues for representative examples relative to application style and presentation.

This issue is the first JCMH issue to be published by the Taylor & Francis Group, which recently merged with The Haworth Press, Inc. We are grateful to our colleagues at Haworth for all their support and collegiality in launching this journal, and we now look forward to working with the Taylor & Francis team. We are also grateful to our editorial board members, and to the JCMH staff, Cathy Somody, Sue Clifford, and Catrina Somody, for their dedication to this work. Please visit the Association for Creativity in Counseling website at www.aca-acc.org for further information on ACC and JCMH.

Thelma Duffey, Ph.D., JCMH Editor