Personal clinical experience in psychotherapy provides valuable insight into how evidence‑based interventions are implemented in real‑world practice. At the same time, direct involvement in clinical trials reveals the methodological and logistical complexities inherent in producing high‑quality scientific evidence. Integrating these two perspectives—clinical expertise and hands‑on research experience in clinical psychology and psychotherapy—supports a more informed, realistic, and methodologically sensitive approach to peer review. This dual vantage point enhances the evaluation of scientific work by grounding it simultaneously in empirical rigor and clinical applicability.

Clinical experience means that a mental health expert works with patients at least 3 years and has training in evidence-based psychotherapy, in which he/she works for at least 3 years. This background gives the mental health expert the appropriate support to evaluate studies in a peer review regarding clinical implementation and clinical implication.

Experience with research protocols gives the mental health experts the chance to evaluate in an appropriate way the methodological problems of the study as well as the strengths and limitations of the study.

A common problem in research is copying other research without citing this research. Copyright theft is a threat to research and science, and therefore journal editors and reviewers should be very careful.

Every published article can consider other research by citing it. But authors must adequately justify what their research brings and how innovative it is.

Thus, clinical experience with patients and effective treatments as well as experience with research contribute better to the timely assessment of copyright infringement.

The evaluation of articles by experienced clinicians and researchers also sends a very clear message: The evaluation will be done by experienced scientists, who are able to contribute with all their strength to the publication of a research evaluation!

What does innovative research mean? It is one that has considered previous research with various results and comes to propose something new, which has not been researched, and which is transformed into a new scientific and research hypothesis!

Innovation will answer new concerns and questions and will open new avenues for research and applications in clinical practice.

Clinical and research experience will contribute to a better assessment of the degree of innovation.

Advantages of clinical experience for peer-review in journals:

1. The reviewer can distinguish whether the treatment applied is empirically documented or not.
2. The reviewer can distinguish whether the individuals who apply it are appropriately trained, in other words, whether they have formal training in psychotherapy.
3. The reviewer can judge whether the treatment was applied in the conditions foreseen and in realistic contexts.
4. The reviewer can judge whether the treatment is essentially effective and whether it contributes to the recovery of individuals with mental disorders.

Advantages of research experience for peer-review in journals:

The reviewer can judge whether the methodology followed is sufficient to support the results.

The reviewer can judge the methodological disadvantages of the research, which cannot contribute to the better reliability of the results.

The reviewer can judge which other additional statistical method can be used or whether the statistical method followed is the appropriate one.

The reviewer can better judge the level of the research team!

If the research is innovative, then an experienced reviewer can improve it with new comments.

The above context lead to a high quality peer review (Kusumotto et al., 2021).

The experience of a reviewer at the clinical and research level should be combined with a system of values ​​towards colleagues, which should have the following elements:

1. A sense of responsibility (Murphy & Tomas, 2025) towards researchers and the code of ethics of research!
2. Solidarity towards well-designed and innovative research!
3. Critical thinking is always present in what is being evaluated.
4. Fair evaluation: every research has advantages and disadvantages. Nothing is perfect!
5. Solidarity with countries with a low socio-economic level.
6. Strictness towards copyright infringement.
7. Close cooperation with the journal's editors.

New colleagues, who do not have sufficient clinical and research experience, should have self-awareness and a sense of responsibility and reject proposals for article review. They should respect themselves and others and be patient. The right time will come for them too. The prerequisite is that they work long hours in research and clinical practice and enjoy this beautiful journey in mental health as professionals! In other words, we should not be interested in the promotion of superficial work, but in the substantial and long-term interaction with science at a research and scientific level.

In conclusion, the clinical and research experience of scientists contributes to the objective and substantive evaluation of research in journals. Experienced scientists have "traveled" many kilometers of work and research and thus have the appropriate value system to strengthen innovative and evaluable research with their comments.

References

 Kusumoto, FM,  Bittl, JA, Creager, MA, Dauerman, HL, Lala, A, McDermott, MM,  Turco, JV, Taqueti, VR. High-Quality Peer Review of Clinical and Translational Research: A Practical Guide,
Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Volume 78, Issue 15, 2021, Pages 1564-1568,
ISSN 0735-1097,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2021.06.055.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109721059088)

Murphy, C., & Thomas, F. P. (2025). Valuing contributions to peer review: A shared responsibility. The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, 48(1), 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/10790268.2025.2441085