Individual differences science for treatment planning: Personality traits.

Abstract

Evolving ethical, legal, and financial demands require a plan before treatment begins. The authors argue that individual differences research requires the inclusion of personality trait assessment for the construction and implementation of any treatment plan that would lay claim to scientific status.A primer of personality individual differences for treatment planning is presented, including an introduction to constructive realism and major research findings from trait psychology and behavior genetics bearing on treatment planning. The authors present 4 important gains for treatment planning that can be realized from the science of individual differences in personality: (a) knowing where to focus change efforts, (b) realistic expectations, (c) matching treatment to personality, and (d) development of the self.Gone are the days when a therapist could delay planning and simply allow therapy to unfold. Instead, evolving ethical demands (e.g., informed consent), legal demands (e.g., liability management, mandated record keeping), and financial demands (e.g., third-party preapproval) require a plan before treatment begins. In this article, we show that science makes demands as well. The last 40 years of individual differences research require the inclusion of personality trait assessment for the construction and implementation of any treatment plan that would lay claim to scientific status. Science Should Guide Treatment Planning The Fundamental Rule of Treatment PlanningHow should a treatment plan be constructed? What information should it use, and what procedures should it prescribe? We offer a simple and perhaps obvious formula and co-opt Freud's terminology to label it. OUT fundamental rule of treatment planning states that the plan should be based on the best science available.Ethics and laws provide boundaries for the treatment plan, but within those boundaries, science should determine the treatment. In fact, both ethical and legal guidelines converge in placing science in the driver's seat. The American Psychological Association's (1992) Ethical Standard 1.05 demands that psychologists keep up to date on scientific and professional information, and Standard 1.06 requires that psychologists "rely on scientifically and professionally derived knowledge when making scientific or professional judgments" (p. 1600).

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