Keynote ISSPD Congress 2023

Targeting Higher-Order Dimensions of Personality: A Potent, Parsimonious, and Personalizable Approach to Mental Healthcare (19182)

Shannon Sauer-Zavala 1
  1. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States

Over 20 million people with a mental health condition in the United States alone will not receive care each year (SAMHSA, 2017) and of those who do, only 30% will receive evidence-based treatment (Radomsky & Otto, 2001). Although efficacious interventions for many mental disorders have been developed, uptake of these treatments in routine clinical practice has been poor. The field’s current gold standard approach – manualized protocols for each categorical DSM diagnosis – is burdensome for clinicians and does not adequately address the needs of patients with co-occurring disorders. By contrast, personality-focused transdiagnostic interventions designed to target the limited number of shared mechanisms that account for symptoms across a range of psychopathology have the potential to reduce burden on clinicians (i.e., fewer treatments to learn) and can elegantly address comorbid conditions. This talk will describe the development, efficacy testing, and personalization of two personality-focused transdiagnostic interventions (i.e., the Unified Protocol, COMPASS).