Case formulation is a basic clinical activity used across settings, treatments, and populations to understand and organize a given patient's problems, complaints, and prototypic patterns, as well as to focus and tailor treatment plans. Interpersonal Case Formulation (ICF, also known as SASB-CMP) is a contemporary formulation method specifically designed to summarize relational dynamics described by patients. ICF combines the Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB), with the Cyclical Maladaptive Pattern (CMP) method of formulation used in Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy (TLDP) to organize patient descriptions of relationships into a concise, interpersonally-based summary that may be used for research, or as the focus of psychotherapy. This paper presents reliability and validity data as well as an initial taxonomy of ICF patterns in a sample of 75 outpatients seen as part of the Vanderbilt II psychotherapy research project. Reliability was found to be good overall, both on the level of individual coding decisions, as well as at the level of the aggregate formulation profile. In addition, aspects of formulation dynamics correlated with measures of symptomatology, personality, and treatment outcome. Taxonomic analyses used Q-factoring to create prototypes reflecting common interpersonal patterns revealed in patient descriptions of Acts of Self, Acts of Others, and Introjective Acts. The derived prototype patterns showed some limited correspondence with measures of patient functioning and therapy outcome. Implications for clinical and research use will be discussed.
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