personality-guided therapy
a therapeutic framework that considers an understanding of each individual’s unique cognitive, affective, and behavioral traits to be essential for effective clinical treatment. According to this approach, psychopathology emerges from poorly functioning personality systems. Thus, to best facilitate a client’s long-term recovery and return to healthy functioning, the approach does not address symptoms per se but rather focuses on changing the underlying ways of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and relating that are associated with the pathology. Once a practitioner becomes familiar with the whole person, he or she may then selectively apply various therapeutic techniques and perspectives (cognitive behavioral, humanistic, psychodynamic, etc.) if and when appropriate to a given personality system. For example, a nurturing, supportive approach to treating depression would be appropriate for clients with dependent personalities (who feel helpless and fear
abandonment) but not for those with antisocial personalities (who are exploitative and impulsive). [introduced in 1999 by Theodore Millon]