The seamless transition: on exiting the JMHC editorship.

Being editor of the Journal of Mental Health Counseling (JMHC) has been an honor, a privilege, a learning experience, and a pleasure. I developed many new relationships, through e-mails, particularly with authors and reviewers. Although I met a few of these individuals at professional conferences, for the most part, these relationships have remained delightful dialogues that occurred in virtual space and struck me as somewhat strange because of being devoid of images or vocal tones attached to names and felt connections. These conversations, which illustrate the technologically based changes in the world, were an unexpected perk of the job; and I will miss them. I will also miss being so completely immersed in the breadth of topics and scholarship that fit within JMHC's mission. As editor, I developed a fuller understanding and appreciation of the several purposes and constituencies associated with both mental health services and AMHCA's commitment to the intersection of research and theory as contributing to the continuing development of practice. Serendipitously, I have come to feel that I know a little about a lot, because, while engaged in my own professional conversations (e.g., with students), I have discovered a newly developed fund of knowledge.

As with other worthwhile professional endeavors, I experienced some frustrations in being editor of JMHC. Although my students and I benefit from my increased expertise with APA style (APA, 2001), I was sometimes exasperated with the amount of effort required to develop accuracy in articles' reference lists, and in the match of citations and references. To phrase it in the vernacular, I am here to tell you that it is just plain hard to get the references correct. In my tenure as editor, I rarely saw a reference list that was accurate and required no, or even only a few, revisions. Matching citations and references appears to be almost as difficult. On the other hand, my own references are more accurate than they used to be. While editor, I remembered that earlier in my career I would get irritated when "journal editors made me" correct cites and references. In one of those funny quirks of life, it dawned on me: Whose job did I think it was to get the details of the references and citations correct! Of course, it is the author's.

My tenure as editor also reinforced for me that the dialogue between the scholars publishing in the journal and the professional readership is facilitated by high-quality writing. Early into my editorial responsibilities, I became aware of how much my own professional writing had changed and how much I had learned about writing by receiving feedback from the editorial review process. Thus, the style and conventions of writing for publication seem to me to constitute development that accrues more often on-the-job, based on experiences in a training program. Now, I believe even more strongly that writing matters. For scholarly work to reach its audience, researchers and theorists need to lead readers through an organized and focused text. Take research articles as an example. The study is conducted according to scientific procedures and standards. However, in evaluating submitted manuscripts, reviewers frequently ask for changes that facilitate comprehension and usability of the research that is written in a way that engages the readers and makes comprehension a "no-brainer" rather than cognitive work. Although it may seem counterintuitive, non-concise wording, lengthy explanation, summaries, and repetition require more work from the reader, who has to sift through the language and text to discern the point. Therefore, it is usually more effective to usher the reader through the study, while reporting sufficient information to allow professionals to draw their own conclusions about the strength of the methodology, design, and analyses. For example, reviewers asked again and again for hypotheses. It is much easier to track an article that says: (a) This paragraph is the context that is relevant to my topic and the journal's mission (Kazdin, 1995), (b) These are the hypotheses, (c) I did this statistical procedure to analyze this hypothesis, and (d) Here is the meaning of the results in plain language. Researchers do not change the hypotheses, research questions, designs, or methodology of their investigations. Consumers do, however, benefit when authors write to the specific readership, thereby enhancing communication and dialogue with a busy professional audience.

I was somewhat surprised by how many people contribute to publishing each issue of JMHC. I appreciated the collaboration, support, and wisdom from the Executive Director of AMHCA and publisher of JMHC, W. Mark Hamilton, who is attuned to the scientific basis and strength of knowledge development. He has seemed dedicated to preserving the academic freedom of the journal and committed to hearing all voices, so long as they reflect high quality scholarship and professional standards. I also learned much and gained support from Past Presidents of AMHCA, Midge Williams and Bill Wheeler. Through interactions with these leaders, I developed an increased appreciation for and vision of the mental health counseling profession, and I gained a far better grasp of (a) the value of articles' knowledge to practice and (b) the importance of the specific language, mental health counselors, in drawing attention to, distinguishing, and positioning mental health counseling as a distinct profession for specific professionals in diverse settings (Rigazio-DiGilio, 1996). Accordingly, my apologies to former JMHC editors, Larry Gerstein and Kevin Kelly, who insisted that I use the appropriate term when publishing in the journal. Finally, the publication staff was exceptionally easy to work with: copyeditors Ceel Pasternak and then Jennifer Merrill Thompson; Virginia Moore, production coordinator at AMHCA; and Gwen Bryant and then Debbie Everson at EBSCO. Work is more enjoyable when it feels like a team effort, as this did.

In addition to the authors who submit their manuscripts, the voices of the Editorial Board, the associate editors and the reviewers, are invaluable in bringing manuscripts to publication. The JMHC Editorial Board is truly excellent, particularly in their evaluative and educative functions. These professionals, whose names and affiliations have graced the masthead of each issue, reviewed approximately one manuscript each month and took their responsibility very seriously. They provided sophisticated, substantive, and thorough examinations of manuscripts, and furnished authors with helpful comments, including additional references and concrete suggestions (e.g., outlining how to enhance the article's organization to facilitate comprehension). I very much appreciated their attention to detail and their timeliness. Producing an issue on time depends on the reviewers' returning their feedback when requested. Members of the editorial board tracked and met these deadlines. In addition, I owe a special thank you to James R. Rogers, associate editor-research, and Alex Hall, associate editor-theory. In addition to their general responsibilities, they each, on more than one occasion, delivered a very much needed, excellent, "emergency" review in a very limited period of time. These professionals who are an essential part of the review process functioned to enhance both the presentation of the authors' ideas and the quality of published scholarship.

Looking back on the journal's productivity is another part of transitioning the editorship. Over the last three years, I was responsible for 1084 journal pages. These 163 numbered submissions resulted in accepting and publishing 12 issues, which included 7 editorials, 19 quantitative or qualitative research articles, 8 theory articles, 22 practice articles, and 3 professional exchange articles. In addition, there were: (a) two special issues, "Perspectives on Counseling the Bereaved" (Servaty-Seib, 2004a) and "Counseling Around the World" (Gerstein & AEegisdottir, 2005a); and (b) four special sections, "Multicultural Counseling Competencies" (Thomas & Weinrach, 2004), "Unique issues in Counseling the Bereaved" (Servaty-Seib, 2005b), "Master Therapists" (Skovholt & Jennings, 2005), and "Counseling Outside of the United States: Looking in and Reaching out!" (Gerstein & AEegisdottir, this issue). As best as I could determine, given that some names cannot be clearly demarcated as male or female, 40 first authors were men, and 51 were women; and there were 49 men and 47 women as co-authors. The vast majority of authors (n = 61 first authors; n = 63 co-authors) were in academic settings; however, 11 first authors were in clinical settings, and 10 were students, as compared with 10 clinical coauthors and 10 student co-authors.

In terms of disposition and content, 3 manuscripts were returned without review because of not being written in a professional style (i.e., essays without references), 2 were withdrawn from review, and 15 were not revised and resubmitted. Many of the journal's articles have provided leadership for an inclusive community (Hall, 2002) by focusing on several aspects of cultural diversity, including poor and rural women, African American women, single women across cultures, African American adolescent males, older adults, lesbians and gay men, and Iraqi Gulf War veterans. These articles and the special issues/sections are evidence, too, of the journal's position in informing professionals about timely, emerging concerns that are linked to social changes and inter-cultural exchanges. Gerstein and AEegisdottir's international issue (2005a) and section (2005b) comprise a culturally illuminating, compelling, and useful illustration of this leadership. In addition, there have been 3 attachment theory articles, which I mention because of my own research interest and because of my view that development is facilitated in relationships. In addition, as discussed by Rogers (2002), the journal has sustained its allegiance to research by including both qualitative and quantitative methods and by reporting effect sizes as well as sample specific psychometric information.

As the editorship transitions to James R. Rogers, I would like to convey my sense of trust in Jim and his abilities. I am leaving the journal in good hands, which is important professionally and personally due to my affection for and commitment to this journal (Pistole, 1996). I do, however, have a small bit of advice, which is linked to my occasional experiences with Doug Sprenkle (1997), a Purdue colleague who edited a different journal: Find a way to take your vacations! I actually managed to spend a month in New York City during each of two summers that I was editor. In addition, I wanted to continue the tradition of mentoring authors; I certainly did attempt to recognize potential contributions and use reviewer feedback to assist authors' development of writing high quality, publishable articles. Relatedly, I have very much appreciated and been surprised by the positive feedback I received, for instance, from authors who found that the review process enhanced their article and their development. I also appreciate the authors who wanted to call and yell at me--and refrained from doing so. As the leadership of the journal changes to reflect different intellectual commitments, I sincerely hope that the transition to Jim and his Editorial Board is as seamless as it was when I followed Kevin Kelly. I am pleased to be placed along side the professionals who are past editors of the Journal of Mental Health Counseling.

REFERENCES

American Psychological Association (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington DC: APA.

Gerstein. L., & Aegisdottir, S. (2005a). Counseling around the world [special issue]. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 27(2).

Gerstein. L., & AEegisdottir, S. (2005b). Counseling outside of the U.S.: Looking in and Reaching out! [special section]. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 27, 221-224.

Hall, A. S. (2002). Theory, practice, and professional development: Best practices, hearing all voices. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 24, 199-201.

Kazdin, A. E. (1995). Preparing and evaluating research reports. Psychological Assessment, 7, 228-237.

Pistole, M. C. (1996). Publishing research in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 18, 307-311.

Rigazio-DiGilio, S. A. (1996). Defining the mental health counseling profession: Embracing historical and contemporary perspectives as the interface of theory, practice, research, and professional exchange. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 18, 291-299.

Rogers, J. R. (2002). Looking back and moving forward: Research in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 24, 195-198.

Servaty-Seib, H. L. (2004a). Perspectives on counseling the bereaved [special issue]. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 26(2).

Servaty-Seib, H. L. (2004b). Unique issues in counseling the bereaved [special section]. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 26, 243-281.

Skovholt, T., & Jennings, L. (2005). Master therapists [special section[. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 27, 13-93.

Sprenkle, D. H. (1997). Editorials. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. 23, 369-370.

Thomas, K. R., & Weinrach, S. G. (2004). Multicultural counseling competencies, [special section]. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 26, 39-93.

M. Carole Pistole, Ph.D., is with the Department of Educational Studies. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. E-mail: [e-mail].