Modes: Cohesive personality states and their interrelationships as organizing concepts in psychopathology.

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, Vol 132(3), Apr 2023, 238-248; doi:10.1037/abn0000699We propose a transdiagnostic approach that centers on modes, state-like manifestations of personality that function as cohesive organizational units. Modes are characterized by specific profiles of affects, behaviors, cognitions, and desires that tend to be coactivated. Each mode is typically experienced as having its own distinct experiential and agentic qualities. A mode-based approach to psychopathology builds on recent analytic and methodological developments which demonstrate the value of modeling personality states dynamically, as well as on longstanding theoretical and empirical traditions that highlight the pragmatic clinical utility of such conceptualizations. We seek to illustrate how the conceptualization of psychopathology in terms of modes and their dynamic interrelations holds considerable transdiagnostic promise. As background, we review both theory and research from philosophical accounts of selfhood, developmental psychology, social and personality psychology, and diverse psychotherapy models that lay the foundation for this mode-based approach to psychopathology. We elaborate on this foundation and (in Section 1 of our online supplemental materials) provide examples of the approach’s explicit or implicit relevance to several classes of psychopathology, including dissociative, trauma-related, mood, anxiety, obsessional, substance, psychotic, and personality...
Source: Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research