Speakers - 2026

Title: Modular-based dimensional approach to the treatment of addiction

Abstract

The empirical dimensional based conceptualization of personality for determining functional impairment and establishing diagnosis has become prevalent and gained significant attention in the updated version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). Well-established problems with categorical classification system such as low reliability, diagnostic comorbidity and within-disorder heterogeneity complicate research and treatment.  A number of case examples are now available in the literature for using the dimensional personality functioning model to develop treatment plans (11,12, 35). As argued by Mullins-Sweatt et al., (16), it is clear that diagnostic constructs are poor predictors of treatment needs. The dimensional based assessment instead of assigning individuals to a mental disorder category in a binary approach (have or don’t have), quantifies a person’s symptoms or characteristics and denotes them with numerical values on one or more scales or continuums. Diagnosis then is not a binary process of deciding the presence or absence of thedisorder, but rather considers the degree in terms of symptoms count or the intensity, frequency and duration to which a particular characteristic is present. From the clinical perspective, delineating the role of personality functioning through characteristic adaptations within the treatment process could contribute to the identification of individual vulnerabilities so that they could be adequately addressed early on in order to prevent potential clinical deterioration and/or premature mental health deterioration and/or treatment drop out. Practically, this would imply that despite personality traits stability, interventions could moderate the degree of dysfunctional behavioural phenotypes by targeting the partially context-sensitive characteristic adaptations.

What will the audience take away from your presentation?

Its modular eclectic structure provides the unique opportunity to match each cluster of dysfunctional personality dimensions with interventions that have been empirically supported to address the specific dimensions, increasing in this way treatment specificity.

Despite the empirical evidence support of the clinical utility for the dimensional assessment of personality functioning, there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the role of these personality dimensions on critical treatment process variables. Therefore, the identification of personality dimensions that may activate dysfunctional behavioural patterns within the treatment environment is of major importance. The transdiagnostic modular eclecticism proposed is in line and build on the basic principles of the integrated modular approach.

This modular framework goes one step further may contribute towards improving the clinical utility as it provides a detailed description of individuals’ personality functioning and by taking into account their empirical association with critical treatment process indicators, as well as through the adoption and adopts of empirical personalized-informed interventions from a variety of therapeutic approaches (modular technical eclecticism). Its modular eclectic structure provides the unique opportunity to match each cluster of dysfunctional personality dimensions with interventions that have been empirically supported to address the specific dimensions, increasing in this way treatment specificity.