International Journal of Counseling and Psychotherapy (IJCP) adheres to ethical guidelines and best practices based on COPE and Elsevier standards to ensure a rigorous peer-review process for high-quality publications. The journal officially adopts a double-blind review process, in which neither authors nor reviewers have access to each other's identities throughout the evaluation workflow.

What is Double-Blind Peer Review?
A double-blind peer review is an academic evaluation method where the identities of both the authors and the reviewers are concealed from each other throughout the entire review process. This model is designed to minimize bias, prevent personal or institutional conflicts of interest, and ensure that the manuscript is evaluated purely on its scholarly merit, objective methodology, and contribution to the field.

Double-Blind Peer Review Policy
The International Journal of Counseling and Psychotherapy (IJCP) implements a thorough evaluation workflow based on this double-blind standard to maintain the highest publication quality. The foundational principles of our peer-review process are detailed below:

• Double-Blind Framework: The IJCP utilizes a strict double-blind review process wherein neither authors nor reviewers have access to each other's identities. The managing editor removes all author names, institutional affiliations, and identifying metadata from the manuscript prior to initiating the external review.
• Independent Evaluation: Each manuscript is evaluated by at least two independent external reviewers who possess verified expertise in the specific fields of counseling and psychotherapy. The full list of our qualified review panel can be viewed on the Peer Reviewers page.
• Editorial Authority: The final editorial decision (acceptance or rejection) is determined by the Editorial Board. This decision is strictly informed by the reviewers’ assessments and recommendations to ensure unwavering compliance with ethical standards and research integrity. Detailed instructions for our evaluation standards are available in the Reviewer Guidelines.
• Transparency: Review outcomes and constructive feedback are communicated transparently to the authors. The editorial team does not engage in post-decision correspondence or negotiations regarding rejected manuscripts.

IJCP Peer-Review Workflow
All papers undergo full peer review. The IJCP employs a double-blind peer-review process. Detailed information about the manuscript submission flow (from author to acceptance by the editor) is shown in the following figure:

 

The peer review process described above is detailed below:

• Manuscript Submission (Route 1): The author officially submits the manuscript through the IJCP Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.
• Initial Screening and Selection / Desk Review (Route 2): The managing editor and editorial team conduct an initial desk screening to verify scope alignment and basic formatting requirements. Each submission undergoes a rigorous plagiarism assessment utilizing Turnitin. Editors retain the authority to reject a manuscript at this stage (desk rejection) or advance it to the formal peer-review stage.
• Peer-Review Stage (Route 3-4): The manuscript is assigned to at least two independent external peer reviewers for rigorous substantive evaluation.
• Editorial Notification (Route 5): Based on the collective evaluation and comments from the reviewers, the editor issues a formal notification to the author specifying whether the manuscript has been accepted, requires revision, or has been rejected.
• Manuscript Revision (by Author): The author addresses the reviewers' feedback and implements the required modifications within the stipulated timeframe.
• Revision Submission (Route 1): The author resubmits the revised manuscript along with a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments through the OJS platform, following a similar flow to the initial submission.
• Final Acceptance (Route 6): If the peer reviewers and editors are fully satisfied that all scientific and structural concerns have been resolved, a formal notification of acceptance is sent by the editor.
• Production and Publication (Route 7 & 8): The accepted manuscript undergoes professional galley proofing, typesetting, and final online publication.

Notes on Timeline:
Steps 1 through 5 constitute a single round of the peer-review process.
The average time for the peer-review process is 20 days from assignment to the initial editorial decision.

Editorial Decision Categories
The Editorial Board synthesizes the detailed assessments provided by the peer reviewers to render one of the following decisions:

• Accepted, as it is: The journal will publish the manuscript in its current form without further modifications.
• Accepted with Minor Revisions: The journal will proceed with publication pending minor textual or stylistic corrections, to be completed by the author within the designated timeframe.
• Accepted with Major Revisions: The journal will reconsider the manuscript for publication only after the authors execute significant structural, methodological, or analytical revisions requested by the reviewers and editors.
• Resubmit (Conditional Rejection): The journal declines the manuscript in its current state but is willing to evaluate a thoroughly restructured version as a completely new submission in a subsequent round of review.
• Rejected (Outright Rejection): The journal will not publish or reconsider the manuscript due to critical conceptual, methodological, or ethical deficiencies.

The steps point number 1 to 5 are considered as 1 round of the peer-reviewing process (see the grey area in the figure). The editor or editorial board considers the feedback provided by the peer reviewers and arrives at a decision. The following are the most common decisions:

• Accepted, as it is. The journal will publish the paper in its original form;
• Accepted by Minor Revisions, the journal will publish the paper and asks the author to make small corrections (let authors revised with stipulated time);
• Accepted by Major Revisions, the journal will publish the paper provided the authors make the changes suggested by the reviewers and/or editors (let authors revised with stipulated time);
• Resubmit (conditional rejection), the journal is willing to reconsider the paper in another round of decision-making after the authors make major changes.
• Rejected (outright rejection), the journal will not publish the paper or reconsider it, even if the authors make major revisions.

It is important to note that the Editorial Board does not engage in post-decision correspondence or appeals regarding rejected manuscripts. Instead, authors will transparently receive the compiled review results and the specific reasons for the rejection through the system. The final decision on acceptance or rejection rests solely with the Editorial Board, heavily weighing the reviewers' objective assessments and recommendations. This comprehensive peer-review process ensures the quality, validity, and long-term integrity of the research published in the IJCP