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Case conceptualization is standard in psychotherapy practice and determines the treatment process.

Case conceptualization should be tailored, flexible, and collaboratively agreed upon with the patient.

In psychotherapy, symptoms are not just something to simply suppress as quickly as possible.

This post is part 3 of a series.

As with addressing or interpreting dreams in therapy—a phenomenon many psychotherapists today sadly dismiss as meaningless—part of the clinician's role and responsibility is to consider, along with the patient, what, if anything, their symptoms might mean.

What Is Clinical Case Conceptualization?

Most mainstream psychotherapists these days are clinically, legally, and ethically expected to formulate, from the inception of the psychotherapy process, some sort of case formulation or conceptualization upon which to base their tentative treatment plan. This has become what is called a "standard of care" and "core clinical competency" in the mental health field, and it refers to a comprehensive and integrative overview of the client or patient's clinical presentation and circumstance.

We could say that such a formal case conceptualization consists of at least 10 clinical considerations, which can be called the 10 P's: presentation, predisposition, precipitating, perpetuating and protective factors, preexisting patterns, preliminary psychodiagnosis, plan of treatment, and prognosis.

The basic idea is to formulate and tailor a unique and........

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