Publication Guide
American Psychiatric Association Publishing (often shortened to APA Publishing, and found online at appi.org) is the publishing arm of the American Psychiatric Association - the medical specialty society for US psychiatrists, founded in 1844 and headquartered in Washington DC. Unlike the mega-publishers, APA Publishing runs a deliberately small portfolio: roughly six peer-reviewed journals, all in psychiatry and mental health, alongside the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and a deep catalog of clinical psychiatry books.
One point of frequent confusion up front: this is the American Psychiatric Association, a society of physicians - not the American Psychological Association, which publishes journals in psychology and maintains APA citation style. The psychiatry journals here follow AMA-style numbered referencing, not APA style.
This guide covers the journal portfolio, open access and fees, peer review, and how to submit.
Which APA Publishing journal fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this journal |
|---|---|
| Have strong original research in any area of psychiatry - clinical trials, neuroscience, genetics, epidemiology | The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) - the flagship, continuously published since 1844 and among the highest-impact psychiatry journals worldwide. Highly selective. |
| Study mental-health services, policy, financing, or delivery systems | Psychiatric Services - established 1950; the leading venue for services and policy research in mental health. |
| Write about psychotherapy practice, technique, or outcomes | American Journal of Psychotherapy - founded 1947; the association's official psychotherapy journal. |
| Want a clinical review that keeps practitioners current | FOCUS (The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry) - commissioned and submitted reviews tied to continuing education. |
| Be a psychiatry resident or fellow publishing early-career work | AJP Residents' Journal - a trainee-edited companion to AJP. |
What APA Publishing actually publishes
- The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) - the flagship. Launched in 1844 as the American Journal of Insanity and renamed in 1943, it publishes original research across all of psychiatry and is the society's journal of record.
- Psychiatric Services - monthly journal on mental-health services research, policy, and administration, established in 1950.
- FOCUS - quarterly clinical-review journal supporting lifelong learning and board recertification.
- American Journal of Psychotherapy - the official psychotherapy journal, founded 1947 and relaunched under APA Publishing.
- AJP Residents' Journal - resident- and fellow-authored companion publication to AJP.
- Psychiatric News and additional member periodicals sit alongside the peer-reviewed titles.
- The DSM library - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently DSM-5-TR (published March 2022), plus casebooks, handbooks, and the wider clinical book program.
Journals are hosted on the Psychiatry Online platform, and flagship titles are indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science.
Open access & APCs
APA Publishing journals are subscription journals with a hybrid open-access option; there is no fully-OA journal in the core portfolio.
| Route | What it costs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription publication | $0 to the author | The default - no page or submission charges for standard articles at most titles. |
| Hybrid open access | ~$3,000+ per article | Per-journal APC to make your individual article OA under a CC BY licence. Confirm the current fee on the journal's author page before submitting. |
| Green self-archiving | $0 | Authors may deposit the accepted manuscript in a repository, subject to the journal's embargo terms. |
APA Publishing does not run a large transformative-agreement (Read & Publish) portfolio of the kind common at big commercial publishers, and no portfolio-wide LMIC waiver policy is published - ask your library about coverage and the journal office about waivers.
Peer review
- Model: single-anonymized peer review across the portfolio - reviewers know the authors' identities; authors do not know the reviewers'.
- Selectivity: AJP is among the most selective journals in psychiatry; allow several months from submission to final decision. Psychiatric Services and the smaller titles typically move faster.
- Ethics: the publisher is a COPE member and follows COPE guidance on authorship disputes, corrections, and retractions.
How to submit
- Pick the journal. Match your paper's scope using the table above - AJP for original research, Psychiatric Services for services/policy work, and so on.
- Read the author guidelines. Each journal publishes its own instructions on Psychiatry Online, including word limits and disclosure requirements.
- Format your manuscript. Use AMA-style numbered references (not APA style). SciSpace templates for APA Publishing journals handle the formatting automatically.
- Submit through the journal's online submission portal. Each title links its manuscript-submission system from its author page - check the journal's own page for the current portal.
- Complete disclosures. Financial-conflict and prior-presentation disclosures are strictly enforced, in line with ICMJE recommendations.
Ethics and integrity
APA Publishing is a COPE member. As a medical society publisher, it applies ICMJE-aligned policies on authorship, clinical-trial registration, and conflict-of-interest disclosure. Retractions and corrections follow COPE guidelines, and the DSM program operates under its own extensive disclosure rules for contributors.
