Why a New Journal on Mental Health...

There are a large number of journals that focus on psychiatry, psychology and various other mental health specialties in the Indian sub-continent. The present journal has been christened as 'Indian Journal of Mental Health'. The need for such a journal has been on my mind for some time now though the crystallization of the concept has taken much longer. There are many journals that focus on psychiatry and psychology but yet look at all mental health disciplines as separate branches discreet from one another. The present journal aims to bridge this gap. The journal aims to provide a common platform for psychologists, non-governmental organization workers, social workers and psychiatrists to have a common platform to present their work and debate their ideas. This journal has many unique features when we compare it to its counterparts.

There have been authors and clinicians with beautiful views albeit scientific and clinically relevant who want to publish their minds but the rigorous author guidelines of journals bog them down along with referencing styles and lead them to disdain. For such situations we have introduced a section on free format clinical writing which is a narrative section of the journal where a clinical viewpoint can be published without a need for references and author guidelines and useful clinical areas may be discussed without the fear of following journal guidelines. We want to encourage novel views and clinical points of interest. The free format section shall encourage more authors put their thoughts on paper and shall help in bringing complex clinical thoughts to the fore in a narrative manner. Another unique feature of this journal is to encourage student research under the junior researcher section. Here students in graduate and post graduate students with promising research projects can have their work published and the journal shall go all out to encourage and publish such work and may also provide a technical and editorial support to such authors if the need arises.

We have also devoted a special section of the journal to non-governmental organizations and people working in them where the section shall explore the work done by such organizations as well as the growth and progress of such organizations under the NGO section. We shall also have an innovative therapies section in the journal where newer and innovative therapies shall be highlighted along with details of where to seek training for the same.

Further details are available in the Instructions to Authors section on the website