ABSTRACT
A decade ago, the editor of the current volume observed that theory and research in family therapy had matured from “universal theories of how families operate” (Lebow, 2005, p. xv) articulated within “schools” of family therapy to identification of family processes associated with specific clinical problems and core tenets and interventions to address those processes and problems. A parallel process is underway in psychotherapy effectiveness research, although it began at the opposite end of the universality–uniqueness continuum. Having focused for three decades on the development and testing of diagnosis-specific treatment protocols, psychotherapy research is increasingly designed to identify therapeutic techniques commonly used across distinct treatments for a particular disorder and across treatments for disorders evidencing overlap in some clinical features and etiological mechanisms (e.g., anxiety and depression). Emerging from these efforts are transdiagnostic, modular, and principle-based approaches to treatment. Each approach aims to embed specific empirically tested clinical procedures within a cogent case conceptualization process that allows for individualization of treatment (McHugh, Murray, & Barlow, 2009).
