Why we publish
The psychology shelf is a strange place. On one side sit clinical texts that are rigorous but inaccessible; on the other, popular self-help that is accessible but too often clinically thin, or frankly misleading. IAP Press was founded on the conviction that this gap is a failure, not a law of nature — that it is possible to write about the mind with both rigour and warmth.
We publish two kinds of book, and we take both equally seriously. Our practitioner and academic titles are protocol-led manuals and critical guides written for therapists, counsellors, supervisors and students. Our consumer titles are evidence-informed books for general readers dealing with anxiety, sleep, low mood, procrastination, self-esteem, addiction and the ordinary difficulty of being a person. What unites them is a standard: every claim is one our authors are prepared to defend.
We are the imprint of a training institute, and that shapes us. Our authors teach. Our editors supervise. The distance between what we publish and what is actually practised is deliberately short.
We would rather publish fewer books, and stand behind every one of them.
Editorial standards
Credibility is not a tone; it is a process. Everything we publish is held to a set of standards that we are happy to make public.
Evidence sourcing
Claims of therapeutic effect are grounded in the peer-reviewed literature, and our authors are asked to distinguish clearly between what the evidence establishes, what it suggests, and what remains a matter of clinical judgement. We do not publish claims we cannot source. Consumer titles are reviewed with Australian consumer law in mind: any statement about outcomes must be defensible.
Referencing conventions
Academic and practitioner titles follow APA conventions consistently. Consumer titles carry a plain-language notes section so that an interested reader can follow the argument back to its source without the text becoming forbidding.
Review process
Practitioner titles are read by at least one subject-matter reviewer independent of the author before acceptance. Consumer titles are reviewed by a qualified practitioner for clinical accuracy and for the responsible handling of distress. Nothing goes to press on the strength of a good manuscript alone.
The Institute of Applied Psychology
IAP Press is the publishing arm of the Institute of Applied Psychology, a Sydney-based registered training organisation (RTO #70206) delivering accredited programmes in counselling, clinical hypnotherapy and applied psychology. The Institute is where much of our list is taught, tested and put to work.