From Dynamics to Function

Advancing the Assessment of Dynamic Psychological Processes

Most commonly used clinical assessment tools cannot fully capture the dynamic psychological processes often hypothesized as core mechanisms of psychopathology and psychotherapy. There is therefore a gap between our theories of problems and interventions for those problems and the tools we use to understand clients. The purpose of this special issue is to connect theory about clinical dynamics to practice by focusing on methods for collecting dynamic data, statistical models for analyzing dynamic data, and conceptual schemes for implementing dynamic data in applied settings. In this introductory article, we argue for the importance of assessing dynamic processes, highlight recent advances in assessment science that enable their measurement, review challenges in using these advances in applied practice, and adumbrate the articles in this issue.