On balancing approaches to psychotherapy: Prescriptive patterns of attention, motivation, and personality

Prescriptive dimensions for differential treatments are reviewed. In contrast to previous efforts in this vein, a number of empirical and conceptual literatures from various fields within psychology are reviewed which emphasize the characteristics of the client, rather than the characteristics of specific disorders. Specifically, the prescriptive match between the person and the treatment is considered in relation to convergent dimensions of social motivation, attention style, and personality. These dimensions are integrated into an expanded definition of the global continuum of agency and communion. A relative definition of health is also considered in terms of the balance of the agentic and communal dimensions within persons (flexibility), and in terms of the possible shift in the prescriptive formulae during the course of therapy.