Feasibility and utility of idiographic models in the clinic: A pilot study

Abstract

Introduction: Idiographic, or individual-level, methodology has been touted for its potential clinical utility. Empirically modeling relationships between symptoms for a single individual may offer both the client and therapist information that is useful for case conceptualization and treatment planning. However, few studies have investigated the feasibility and utility of integrating idiographic models in a clinical setting.

Methods: Clients (n = 12) completed ecological momentary assessment regarding psychological symptoms five times per day for three weeks. Clients also generated predictions about the associative and directed relationships in their networks. Graphical vector autoregression was used to generate contemporaneous and directed networks from each client’s data, and both clients and therapists completed self-report questionnaires regarding the feasibility and utility of these methods.

Results: Results indicated that the idiographic model structures varied widely across participants and differed markedly from the client’s own predictions. Clients found the models useful, whereas their therapists demonstrated a more tempered response.

Discussion: These results echo previous findings suggesting that clients are willing to complete intensive data collection and are interested in the output, whereas therapists may be less open to idiographic methods. We provide recommendations for future implementation of personalized models in clinical settings.

Keywords:

• idiographic
• network analysis
• therapy
• implementation

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health: [Grant Number F31 MH 115641]; National Institute on Aging: [Grant Number T32 AG00030-32]. Marilyn L. Piccirillo was supported by a National Research Service Award F31 MH 115641 from the National Institute of Mental Health. Emorie D. Beck was supported by a National Institute on Aging Grant T32 AG00030-32. Funding for this research was received from the Washington University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2020.1805133.

Notes

1 There was an error in the wording of this item such that participants responded to the burdensomeness of answering EMA surveys seven times per day, instead of five times a day (which corresponds to the five daily prompts). Thus, it is possible that the level of projected burden endorsed here is artificially higher.

2 One client missed the back page of the survey, so this and the following two percentages are out of 10 participants.

3 The client labeled his previous divorce as a past trauma, although further assessment suggested that this event could not be classified as an event that would be relevant to post traumatic stress disorder.