Enhancing the Personalization of Psychotherapy With Dynamic Assessment and Modeling. (August 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fisher, Aaron J.; Boswell, James F.
• Other Names: Wright Aidan G. C. guest-editor.; Hopwood Christopher J. guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Assessment. Volume 23:Number 4(2016:Aug.)
• Page Start: 496
• Page End: 506
• Publication Date: 2016-08
• Subjects: person-specific methods -- dynamic modeling -- personalized medicine -- psychotherapy; Psychological tests -- Periodicals; Psychodiagnostics -- Periodicals; Personality tests -- Periodicals; 150.287
• DOI: 10.1177/1073191116638735
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1073-1911

Abstract

Clinicians have long recognized the importance of tailoring psychotherapy interventions to the needs and characteristics of the individual patient. However, traditional approaches to clinical assessment, service delivery, and intervention research have not been conducive to such personalization. Contrary to traditional nomothetic approaches, idiographic assessment and modeling of intraindividual dynamic processes holds tremendous promise for tailoring the implementation of psychotherapy to the individual patient. In this article, we (a) present an argument for assessing person-specific dynamics, (b) provide a detailed description of a method that harnesses person-specific dynamic assessment and modeling for use in routine psychotherapy, (c) present exemplar clinical cases illustrating these methods, and (d) discuss how these methods can be translated into routine clinical assessment and psychotherapy.