Toward personalizing psychotherapy with transdiagnostic procedures

• Applicant: Professorin Elisabeth Schramm, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 551329174

In more than seven decades of research, psychotherapy has come a long way by proving its effects in treating mental health problems. Originating in the founding of the psychotherapy schools with psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive-behavioral or systemic theoretical orientations, psychotherapy research has evolved considerably over time. Much research was stimulated by the development of disorder specific approaches. However, this was not paralleled by improved treatment outcomes as effect sizes of psychotherapy stagnated at a moderate efficacy plateau. Most evidence-based treatment protocols are single-disorder-specific manuals disregarding common comorbidities, transdiagnostic clinical phenomena and the high phenomenological heterogeneity between patients. This mismatch between available disorder-specific manuals and common patient characteristics diminishes treatment effects and leads to their low application in clinical practice. Fueled by the growing criticism that disorder-specific manuals fail to address an individual's complexity of transdiagnostic dysfunctional mechanisms and processes, the research paradigm is currently shifting toward personalization of psychotherapy. By taking differential treatment effects and interindividual differences into account, personalized psychotherapy promises greater flexibility, improved outcomes, and a better fit between research and practice. While there is widespread agreement on the benefits of personalizing psychotherapy, there is no consensus yet on how to implement and achieve it. Within this movement, several distinct innovations such as process-based therapy, modular therapy or data-driven approaches have emerged recently. While all these approaches are highly promising, joint collaborations and models are now needed to prevent fragmentation and parcellation of research efforts. Therefore, the establishment of a scientific network is necessary to develop a common foundation for further research in personalized psychotherapy.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Sabine C. Herpertz