Personalized Models of Psychopathology

The personalized approach to psychopathology conceptualizes mental disorder as a complex system of contextualized dynamic processes that is nontrivially specific to each individual, and seeks to develop formal idiographic statistical models to represent these individual processes. Although the personalized approach draws on influences that are longstanding in clinical psychology, there has been an explosion of research in recent years following the development of intensive longitudinal data capture and statistical techniques that facilitate modeling the dynamic processes of each individual’s pathology. Advances also make idiographic analyses scalable and generalizable. The emerging research using the personalized approach in descriptive psychopathology, precision assessment, and treatment selection and tailoring are reviewed. Future challenges and areas in need of additional research are identified. The personalized approach to psychopathology holds promise to resolve thorny diagnostic issues, generate novel insights, and improving the timing and efficacy of interventions.