Person-specific networks in psychopathology: Past, present, and future

In the psychological network approach, mental disorders such as major depressive disorder are conceptualized as networks. The network approach focuses on the symptom structure or the connections between symptoms instead of the severity (i.e., mean level) of a symptom. To infer a person-specific network for a patient, time-series data are needed. By far the most common model to statistically model the person-specific interactions between symptoms or momentary states has been the vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Although the VAR model helps to bring psychological network theory into clinical research and closer to clinical practice, several discrepancies arise when we map the psychological network theory onto the VAR-based network models. These challenges and possible solutions are discussed in this review.

Automated summary

The psychological network approach conceptualizes mental disorders as networks, focusing on symptom structure and connections rather than severity. The vector autoregressive (VAR) model is commonly used to model individual interactions between symptoms, but discrepancies arise when mapping psychological network theory onto VAR-based models. Challenges and potential solutions are discussed in this review.