Rationale for Symptom-Based Management Approach
摘要
This chapter argues for conceptualizing psychosis as a syndrome rather than a discrete disorder, drawing analogies from internal medicine. Using sepsis, diabetes, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) as models, it explains how syndromes rely on targeted management of multiple contributing dysfunctions rather than pursuit of a single etiological cure. Psychosis similarly exhibits heterogeneous pathways, variable severity, and fluctuating presentations, making symptom-level intervention more pragmatic than disorder-level treatment. The chapter proposes a “syndromic logic” for CBT: clinicians should select treatment modules based on presenting symptoms—e.g., insomnia treatment for patients with insomnia, social anxiety modules for those with social fear—mirroring how medical management individualizes treatment combinations. This approach accommodates the vast heterogeneity of psychosis (“no two patients with schizophrenia are alike”) and provides a systematic rationale for integrating diverse CBT techniques within a unified, symptom-based clinical framework.