Of Strong Swords and Fine Scalpels: Developing Robust Clinical Principles to Cut Through Heterogeneity

Abstract

General scientific summary: The field of computational psychiatry has overwhelmingly focused on the goal of precision medicine (a “fine scalpels” approach). I argue for reallocating some effort toward deriving potent clinical principles to improve psychological treatments (a “strong swords” approach)—a worthwhile goal in its own right with an established track record. I draw on an example from my research program to illustrate the strong-swords approach.