STRUCTURAL-ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL-BEHAVIOR AS A COMMON METRIC FOR PROGRAMMATIC PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY-RESEARCH

This article describes the use of the Structural Analysis of Social Be havior (SASB; L. Benjamin, 1974) as applied to programmatic psychodyna mic-interpersonal psychotherapy research. SASB fosters cumulative, the ory-driven research by permitting problem-treatment-outcome (PTO) cong ruence-the conceptualization and measurement of patients' problems, tr eatment processes, and outcome in a common metric. In this explication of the principle of PTO congruence, the following are discussed: a ge neral model of interpersonal psychopathology and etiology, SASB-based assessment devices for measuring early history and formulating present ing problems, empirical studies of interpersonal process in therapy, t he relationship between manual-guided training and interpersonal proce ss, and the assessment of outcome. A generic interpersonal model of ps ychotherapy is proposed that theoretically links all of these elements . Finally the use of these SASB-based models for cross-theory integrat ive research from a common-factors approach is discussed.