Personal reflection on critical psychiatry

My invited submission to BJPsych Advances on ‘Clinical reflections on critical psychiatry’ has been rejected. As I’ve mentioned before (see previous post), an advantage of the internet is that these rejected manuscripts don’t have to just be put in a file drawer, never to be seen again. 

The invitation to submit followed a tweet in a conversation with @TheBJPsych suggesting I submit a proposal to BJPsych Advances for a special issue on critical psychiatry. I contacted the journal saying I didn’t know how seriously to consider the suggestion, and the journal answered that it would be pleased to consider a proposal if I would like to submit one, which I duly did. When the editorial board discussed the proposal, it felt that as it already had three special issues in the pipeline for the coming year, it would be better to commission and publish select pieces individually. This led to three of the original contributions to my proposal not being commissioned at all, and at least my contribution to the proposal being rejected.

I have discussed before (see previous post) the difficulties in getting critical psychiatry into mainstream journals. Twitter conversations with @TheBJPsych have tended to be more openminded. It’s even possible that Kam Bhui, as BJPsych editor, had an influence over the acceptance of my recent editorials in BJPsych and BJPsych Bulletin.