Application to Psychotherapy: Chance Interventions

Abstract

This chapter is dedicated to the stochastic term of the Fokker-Planck equation in the modeling of dynamics in psychotherapy. We define stochastic interventions as ways to utilize sources of random fluctuations, either by augmenting or reducing stochastic inputs. We find that on top of the intrinsic stochasticity of state variables, a major source of such inputs stems from the environment of therapy systems and can thus be modified by boundary regulations and filtering of noise. Boundary regulation can bear on the social environment of a client, e.g., by a warding-off of social stimuli by milieu therapy, hospitalization, and retreats or by reducing the permeability of family subsystem boundaries. Mental processes may also be subject to intrusions of stochastic emotional and cognitive inputs, and there are interventions that can upregulate (e.g., free association) or downregulate (e.g., mindfulness, relaxation) such inputs. We find that all stochastic interventions also have deterministic functions because in therapy they follow a beneficial goal. In an overview of all types of intervention, we illustrate how the traditional distinction of common factors versus specific techniques relates to the Fokker-Planck model with its deterministic, contextual, and stochastic interventions. We also summarize to which degree these interventions are expressed in the four different clusters of psychotherapy modalities.