“The Nominees for Best Article …”: Awards for the Most Valuable Papers on Psychotherapy in 2018

Each year, many important articles are published that make valuable contributions to the field of psychotherapy. It is helpful to remain informed about recent developments in the field, and respect the useful refinements that are being proposed in various journal articles. Unfortunately, with so many journals in the field, it can be challenging to find the best articles, and some important papers may be overlooked. In recent years, the situation has become even worse with the expansion of many new and often predatory journals, publishing inferior papers. The Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy awards program has two main goals. First, the review of the recent literature helps to highlight the useful papers published during the previous year. Second, the awards program helps to praise the best and inspire the rest, aiming to motivate the field to publish high quality papers. The awards selection process involved a review of numerous academic articles published during 2018 in 60 different professional journals. Then, a panel of judges reviewed 52 finalists for ten possible awards. Adequate agreement was found to provide awards for nine different categories of research studies or review articles. Each winning paper is reviewed, and most authors provide a behind-the-scenes look at the work involved in their valuable contribution to the field of psychotherapy.