Call for papers: Therapeutic Communities and Enabling Environments
Introduction
The Mental Health Review Journal (MHRJ) has the honour to declare a special issue focusing on Therapeutic Communities and Enabling Environments. Therapeutic communities and enabling environments remain as distinctive methods of care, recovery, and relational practice in the fields of mental health, social care, education, and justice. All these methods share a similar philosophy of values, participation, psychological safety, and the creation of cultures that foster healing, growth, and inclusion.
In a scenario where service pressures, policy reform, workforce issues, and different understandings of mental health and well-being have all contributed to the context, there is a need for a critical examination of how therapeutic cultures are developed, managed, and sustained to be more than ever before. The issue will especially be of interest to scholars, practitioners, and individuals with experience who are willing to look back at the significance, obstacles, and tomorrow of therapeutic communities and enabling environments in their contexts of variety.
Scope
The editorial team looks for articles that not only describe but also analyse and creatively interpret the principles, practices, and effects of therapeutic communities and enabling environments. The authors can refer to empirical research, theory, reflective practice, or policy analysis, focusing on the organisational, relational, cultural, or systemic aspects of therapeutic settings.
The submission of papers from a variety of disciplines and from the authors who are involved in health, social care, psychology, sociology, education, criminology, and related fields is strongly encouraged. Moreover, the contributions that give priority to lived experience, co-production, and inclusive practice are specifically welcomed.
Know More About This Issue
Therapeutic communities and enabling environments are based on democratic values, mutual responsibility, safety, participation, and respect. Nevertheless, the maintenance of these values in modern-day systems still creates major difficulties such as limited resources, regulatory compliance, risk management culture and social and political pressures.
This special issue opens the door to the inquiry of how therapy is either adapted and protected or challenged and transformed in practice. The contributors may bring forth the aspects of innovation, creativity, ethical dilemmas, power relations, and the impact of policies on therapeutic environments, while at the same time providing an overview of prospective research and practice directions.
Key Themes
The main subjects that are mentioned for this special issue are as follows: although not exclusively to them, these would be the most important ones:
How We Support Your Submission
To get your paper published in a special issue, you need to have a clear and focused approach, use proper methods and be very well aligned with what the journal wants and covers. Researchers and authors can get help from our services in the following ways:
Journal Guidelines:
Important Dates
Submissions Open: Open
Submission Deadline: 31 December 2026
To ensure successful and timely submission to the special issue “Therapeutic Communities and Enabling Environments,” researchers are encouraged to leverage the expert services of the PhD Assistance Research Lab, offering comprehensive support from conceptualisation to final manuscript submission within the specified deadline.
Emerald Publishing. (n.d.). Therapeutic communities and enabling environments [Call for papers]. Mental Health Review Journal. https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/calls-for-papers/therapeutic-communities-and-enabling-environments