EJOP Editors
Apart from the great pleasure we find in introducing to you this second issue of EJOP, we are also in the position of presenting you with a “new” journal; although the name is still the same, the contents and the new format call for a distinction. We would have never expected EJOP to grow so fast and to reach maturity so easily, but its development, as surprising as it may seem, has brought along several changes that were specifically intended to adjust it to its new status. Thus, what was initially a student project has now turned into a professional one, even though still supported by undergraduate and graduate students, also embracing a new graphic format and a more adequate structure.
We are glad to have as members of our scientific committee highly recognized and internationally valued professors and professionals who are active in a very broad area of psychology specializations. The editorial board is also a sharply enlarged team determined to ensure the observance of quality standards of all published material. With these people supporting it, EJOP has now reached its international primary vocation and is able to effectively sustain its goals.
We also hope that its radical shift of image will bring it closer to your visual expectations as well. We are very well aware of the fact that an electronic journal is far more complex than the simple posting of some written materials on the net. Our experience with EJOP since its conception has taught us that it takes much more to make a journal than gathering information and pushing it onto the internet stage for whoever might be interested. This is why we tried to keep a fair balance between its intentions in both contents and form. Although we strongly feel editorship is a demanding and fulfilling mission, we cannot suppress our concern about being able to bring this endeavor to excellence.
While it is true that we also address a general readership that has a special interest in psychology issues, EJOP is mainly targeted at the scientific and highly professional community. And, in order to reach this target, it is primarily expected that it fits its standards. We believe this second issue to be a guarantee in this sense.
Our experience with EJOP (not a very long one indeed, but very intense in exchange) has brought down some of the preconceived ideas that we started with: borders can be overcome and there is an authentic need for communication and willingness to engage in dialogue between members of our professional and scientific communities, and also, most importantly, between East and West, the only gate-keeper being the quality and relevance of the messages transmitted. We take this opportunity to thank our collaborators (members of the scientific committee, associate editors and authors – both published and unpublished) for their support, interest and sometimes even hard work that they invested in EJOP, thus helping it to become a professional journal that enjoys an international audience.
The complex nature of the work already submitted thrills us and makes us think again about individual differences with a curious and non-critical eye. Some of our collaborators suggested us to welcome more practitioners’ issues in EJOP, due to the fact that professionals working in applied fields of psychology feel they are not appropriately represented by the purely theoretical approach customary in most scientific journals. Others have also suggested considering for publishing critical reviews of already submitted work in a form of an essay. There were also proposals to publish striking interviews with political flavor, of great interest for the large public as well as for the academic circles. We have greeted all these wonderful offers and tried to prioritize them by a few criteria: importance, significance to target, innovation power.
Launching an invitation to a few of our associate reviewers to write an editorial for EJOP came as a pleasant surprise for them and we are glad that starting this issue, the Editorial column will host excellent pieces of work from our AE’s. In this way our initial goal, that of providing a virtual arena to all our colleagues passionately in love with psychology, comes even closer to its achievement. Their views will be shared, thus giving them the opportunity to express the particularities of their professional and/or academic experience and our readers – the opportunity to become aware of different perspectives these people take on various contemporary issues in psychology and the related fields.
This issue stands out in yet another way: it hosts an extensive interview with Prof. Cary Cooper, a person who is already becoming the mentor of EJOP and who inspires much of its present actions and intentions of future development. Steadily devoted to the goal of being neither too academic, nor too professional, yet reasonably both, we thought it would be convenient (definitely not in terms of time or effort comfort) to give you the chance, also by the means of an interview, to get closer to the practice of psychotherapy in the UK – presenting you the reflections, amendments, warnings and recommendations of a sometimes critical, sometimes skeptical, but always subtle and captivating psychotherapist and editor of ipnosis – Yvonne Bates.
We invite you to benefit as much as possible from the information offered in EJOP and we hope that you will find in this second issue all the reasons needed to say that you have found good use for your time reading EJOP.