Process and outcome evaluation with the help of the Synergetic Navigation System (SNS)

Abstract

Process and outcome in psychotherapy can be seen as results of a self-organizing system which includes all factors contributing to success or failure in a specific case: patient and therapist factors, the therapeutic alliance, the setting, the living environment of the patient, interventions and all intended or unintended treatment components. In consequence, evaluation has to be implemented in real-world practice, not only in specific studies. New methods of digitalized outcome and process monitoring like the Synergetic Navigation System (SNS) facilitate the assessment and the analysis of self-organized dynamics and outcome in psychotherapy. In routine-practice, daily self-assessments mirror the complex dynamics of change and deliver the data base for the automatically applied nonlinear analysis methods on time series. The visualization of the therapeutic process on a computer screen allows the cooperative reflection of the dynamics by patient and therapist (continuous cooperative process management). By this, the evaluation of processes actively contributes to change dynamics and is a learning process of its own. By using the SNS not only standardized outcome and process questionnaires can be applied but also personalized questionnaires which are created by the patient and the therapist from a systemic case conceptualization (idiographic system modelling).