The Vault
Browse by discipline
A few starting points in each discipline. Open one to see its articles, or use search to find any topic.
Anthropology
- Cultural Concepts of Distress DSM-5's umbrella term superseding culture-bound syndromes, comprising cultural syndromes, idioms of distress, and cultural explanations.
- Idioms of Distress Culturally shared, socially acceptable modes of expressing distress (somatic complaints, idioms like 'thinking too much' or 'nerves').
- Kleinman's Explanatory Models The culturally shaped beliefs a patient holds about what their illness is, what caused it, how it works, how severe it is, and what treatment they expect, elicited through eight structured questions.
- Rites of Passage Van Gennep's model that transitions of place, status, or age universally follow three phases: separation, transition (liminal), and incorporation.
Behavioral
- Exposure Therapy Systematic confrontation with feared stimuli to reduce avoidance and fear via habituation, extinction, and inhibitory learning.
- Exposure and Response Prevention Gold-standard OCD treatment: exposure to obsessional triggers while blocking the compulsive/neutralizing response.
- Habit Reversal Training Awareness training plus competing-response practice for tics, trichotillomania, and nervous habits.
- Operant Conditioning Voluntary behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences, with reinforcement increasing, punishment decreasing, and schedules governing persistence.
Coaching
- Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change) A model of intentional change describing movement through stages (precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and relapse) with stage-matched interventions.
- SMART Goals A goal-writing heuristic: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
- GROW Model A four-stage coaching conversation structure: Goal, Reality, Options, Will (way forward).
- Health and Wellness Coaching Health and Wellness Coaching (HWC) is a patient-centered, partnership-based modality grounded in motivational interviewing and goal-setting theory that supports sustained health behavior change in chronic disease and lifestyle medicine.
Cognitive
- Theory of Mind Development and False-Belief Understanding The emerging ability (typically by ~4 years) to attribute independent mental states to self and others, enabling prediction and explanation of behavior.
- Attribution Theory People explain behavior and events by assigning internal/dispositional or external/situational causes, with predictable biases (e.g., the fundamental attribution error).
- Self-Discrepancy Theory Gaps between the actual self and the ideal vs. ought self produce distinct emotional families: actual/ideal discrepancies yield dejection-related emotions, actual/ought yield agitation-related emotions.
- Social Comparison Theory People evaluate their abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others, comparing upward (to superiors) or downward (to inferiors).
Cognitive-Behavioral
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy The dominant integration of cognitive restructuring with behavioral techniques targeting the thought-feeling-behavior cycle.
- Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy A phased, components-based (PRACTICE) treatment for traumatized children/adolescents and their caregivers, integrating gradual exposure and cognitive processing.
- Behavioral Activation Depression is maintained by loss of response-contingent positive reinforcement and avoidance; treatment schedules and re-engages clients in rewarding, values-consistent activity.
- CBT for Insomnia First-line insomnia treatment combining stimulus control, sleep restriction, cognitive therapy, and sleep hygiene.
- Prolonged Exposure Therapy A first-line PTSD treatment using repeated imaginal revisiting of the trauma memory plus in vivo exposure to avoided but safe situations.
Communication
- Nonverbal Communication (Kinesics, Proxemics, Paralanguage) Nonverbal communication is the systematic study of body movement (kinesics), interpersonal space (proxemics), vocal qualities (paralanguage), touch, and gaze as channels carrying relational and emotional meaning.
- SPIKES Protocol SPIKES is a six-step protocol (Setting, Perception, Invitation, Knowledge, Empathy, Strategy/Summary) developed in oncology for structuring difficult disclosures.
- Difficult Conversations Framework (Three Conversations) Every hard conversation contains three: the 'what happened' conversation, the feelings conversation, and the identity conversation; shift from message-delivery to a learning stance.
- Communication Accommodation Theory Speakers converge toward or diverge from others' speech style to manage social distance and identity.
Developmental / Attachment
- Attachment Theory Early caregiver bonds shape internal working models of self and others, producing enduring attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganized) that structure relationships.
- Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development Children construct knowledge through schemas via assimilation and accommodation, progressing through sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.
- Adult Attachment Interview & States of Mind A semi-structured narrative interview scoring an adult's coherent state of mind about attachment as secure-autonomous, dismissing, preoccupied, or unresolved.
- Child-Parent Psychotherapy A dyadic treatment for young children and caregivers exposed to trauma, addressing ghosts in the nursery where the parent's unresolved past disrupts the relationship.
- Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) Live-coached dyadic therapy for young children with disruptive behavior, building warmth and consistent discipline.
Economics
- Prospect Theory People evaluate outcomes as gains or losses relative to a reference point, with a value function concave for gains and convex for losses, so reframing the reference point changes felt value.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy People over-honor irrecoverable past investments (and underweigh opportunity cost), continuing an endeavor because of resources already spent rather than future prospects.
- Affective Forecasting and Impact Bias People systematically mispredict the intensity and duration of their future emotional reactions, overestimating how strongly future events will affect them.
- Commitment Devices Voluntarily constraining one's future options (stakes/constraints) to bind a later, weaker-willed self to a present intention, sometimes pairing a 'should' with a 'want' (temptation bundling).
Education
- The Discrimination Model of Clinical Supervision Janine Bernard's Discrimination Model is a widely used, atheoretical 3x3 supervision framework in which the supervisor flexibly adopts teacher, counselor, or consultant roles across three foci of supervisee skill: intervention, conceptualization, and personalization.
- Microcounseling and the Microskills Hierarchy Microcounseling is Allen Ivey's systematic skills-training framework that decomposes the clinical interview into discrete, teachable units (attending behavior, questioning, paraphrasing, reflection of feeling, confrontation, and influencing skills) arranged in a hierarchy and taught through modeling, single-skill practice, and video feedback.
- Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) Norman Kagan's video- or audio-assisted supervision technique in which a therapist relives a recorded session, guided by a non-evaluative inquirer, pausing at key moments to recall the covert thoughts, feelings, and intentions that went unspoken.
- Simulation-Based Education and Debriefing Simulation-based education trains clinicians through standardized patients, role-play, and immersive scenarios, paired with structured post-event debriefing (notably "debriefing with good judgment" and PEARLS).
Family / Systems
- Internal Family Systems An intrapsychic model viewing the mind as a system of parts (exiles, managers, firefighters) led by a core Self that can heal them.
- Bowen Family Systems Theory A multigenerational theory built on eight interlocking concepts (differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear family emotional process, family projection, etc.) governing emotional functioning.
- Structural Family Therapy A model focused on the family's invisible organization (subsystems, boundaries, hierarchy, coalitions) that the clinician works to restructure.
- Gottman Method Couples Therapy A research-derived couples model built on the 'Sound Relationship House,' identifying predictors of divorce (the 'Four Horsemen') and relationship skills.
- Emotionally Focused Therapy An experiential, attachment-science-based therapy for couples, individuals, and families that reshapes negative interaction cycles into secure emotional bonds.
Group / Community
- Interpersonal Process Group Psychotherapy Group treatment in which the group functions as a social microcosm, using therapeutic factors (universality, cohesion, interpersonal learning) so members enact and revise their relational patterns.
- Assertive Community Treatment Multidisciplinary team delivering intensive, individualized treatment and support to people with serious mental illness in their own community.
- Housing First Housing First is a community mental health service philosophy that provides immediate, permanent, low-barrier housing without sobriety or treatment preconditions, then offers voluntary wraparound support, treating housing as the platform for recovery rather than its reward.
- Intentional Peer Support A relational framework for peer support emphasizing mutuality, worldview, moving-toward (vs problem-fixing), and shared responsibility.
Humanistic / Existential
- Person-Centered Therapy A nondirective approach holding that an innate actualizing tendency unfolds when the therapist provides unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruence.
- Motivational Interviewing A collaborative, goal-oriented conversational style that strengthens a person's own motivation and commitment to change by eliciting and reinforcing change talk.
- Gestalt Therapy A present-centered, holistic approach emphasizing awareness of the here-and-now, contact, and the organism completing unfinished 'gestalts.'
- Existential Psychotherapy Therapy organized around four givens of existence: death, freedom/responsibility, isolation, and meaninglessness.
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Self-Actualization Human needs ascend from physiological and safety through belonging and esteem to self-actualization, accompanied by transcendent peak experiences.
Hypnosis
- Solution-Oriented (Ericksonian) Hypnosis A respectful, utilization-based hypnosis demystifying trance and harnessing the client's own resources for inner healing.
- Ego-State Therapy (Watkins & Watkins) Personality is a 'family of selves'; ego states lie on a continuum from normal adaptive states to dissociated alters, and covert states can be hypnotically accessed and given voice.
Integrative / Common Factors
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy A comprehensive treatment balancing acceptance and change through skills training in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy A contextual behavioral therapy that uses acceptance and mindfulness alongside commitment and behavior-change processes to build psychological flexibility.
- Schema Therapy Integrative therapy targeting early maladaptive schemas and schema modes, developed for personality disorders.
- Compassion-Focused Therapy Develops self-compassion and the soothing affiliative system to counter shame and self-criticism, grounded in evolutionary affect-regulation theory.
- Therapeutic Alliance (Working Alliance) The collaborative bond plus agreement on goals and tasks between client and therapist; the most robust common-factor predictor of outcome.
Mindfulness / Acceptance
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction The foundational 8-week secular mindfulness training using body scan, sitting meditation, and mindful yoga to reduce stress and reactivity.
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy An 8-week group program integrating MBSR practices with cognitive therapy to prevent depressive relapse.
- Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention An aftercare program blending mindfulness with cognitive-behavioral relapse-prevention skills for substance use disorders.
- Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) An 8-week training program teaching the three components of self-compassion: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
More approaches
- 12-Step Facilitation Clinician-delivered therapy that engages clients with 12-step mutual-aid (AA/NA) participation.
- SMART Recovery Secular, cognitive-behavioral mutual-support program teaching self-management through a 4-point program (motivation, urge coping, thinking, lifestyle balance).
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is Edmund Jacobson's tense-and-release training of successive muscle groups: the most-researched relaxation technique and a building block of many anxiety and stress protocols.
- Animal-Assisted Therapy Animal-assisted therapy is the goal-directed incorporation of a trained animal (most often a dog or horse) into a treatment plan delivered by a credentialed health professional, distinct from informal animal-assisted activities.
- Neurodiversity Paradigm Views neurological variation (autism, ADHD, dyslexia) as natural human diversity to be accommodated rather than deficits to be cured.
Neuroscience
- Neuroplasticity The brain's lifelong capacity to reorganize structure and function in response to experience, learning, and injury.
- Allostasis / Body Budgeting Stability through anticipatory change: the brain predictively manages the body's energy resources ('body budget') by adjusting setpoints ahead of need.
- Memory Reconsolidation The process by which a reactivated long-term memory becomes temporarily labile and can be updated or erased before re-stabilizing, proposed as the mechanism behind transformational change.
- Biofeedback Provides real-time physiological feedback (HRV, EMG, temperature) to train self-regulation.
Philosophy
- Cognitive Theory of Emotion (Stoic Appraisal Model) The Stoic claim that emotions are assent to evaluative judgments, so disturbed feeling follows from faulty value-laden beliefs.
- Harmful Dysfunction Analysis of Mental Disorder Jerome Wakefield's hybrid account defines mental disorder as a "harmful dysfunction": a failure of an internal mechanism to perform a function for which natural selection designed it (the factual component), combined with resulting harm judged undesirable by social values (the value component).
- Virtue Ethics / Eudaimonia Ethics centered on character: cultivating virtues (courage, temperance, practical wisdom) to achieve eudaimonia, human flourishing as the activity of living well.
- Hermeneutics The philosophy of understanding and interpretation, in which meaning emerges through a dialogical 'fusion of horizons' and the circular movement between part and whole.
Play / Creative Arts
- Art Therapy Use of visual art media (drawing, painting, collage, sculpture) within a therapeutic relationship to support expression, insight, and psychological healing.
- Music Therapy Clinical, evidence-based use of music interventions (improvisation, receptive listening, re-creative methods, songwriting) within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs.
- Play Therapy Systematic therapeutic use of children's natural language of play to help them express, process, and master psychological difficulties.
- Theraplay A structured, attachment-based, dyadic play therapy that recreates healthy parent-infant interaction through Structure, Engagement, Nurture, and Challenge.
- Drama Therapy Use of theatre, role, and performance (including Boal's Forum Theatre and rainbow-of-desire techniques) for group exploration of personal and social issues.
Political / Critical
- Anti-Oppressive / Anti-Racist Practice A social-work paradigm that makes analysis of power and structural oppression central to all helping practice, working to minimize practitioner-client power imbalances.
- Critical Race Theory A framework holding that racism is ordinary and structurally embedded rather than aberrant, centering counter-storytelling and the lived knowledge of people of color.
- Theatre of the Oppressed A participatory theatre system in which 'spect-actors' intervene in enacted scenes of oppression to rehearse change.
- Crip Theory Merges queer theory and disability studies, arguing that 'compulsory able-bodiedness' is intertwined with compulsory heterosexuality.
Psychedelic
- Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Use of psilocybin under psychological support for depression, end-of-life distress, and addiction, structured in preparation-dosing-integration arcs.
- MDMA-Assisted Therapy Manualized therapy pairing MDMA with non-directive support, developed primarily for severe/treatment-resistant PTSD.
- Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy Therapy combining sub-anesthetic/dissociative-dose ketamine with structured preparation, dosing, and integration sessions.
- Set and Setting The principle that an altered-state experience is governed not by the substance alone but by 'set' (mindset, intention) and 'setting' (environment).
- Psychedelic Integration Therapy Structured therapeutic work to translate insights and emotional material from a non-ordinary-state experience into lasting behavioral and narrative change.
Psychodynamic
- Psychoanalysis (Classical / Freudian) The original drive-conflict model in which psychic life is structured by id/ego/superego, unconscious sexual and aggressive drives, repression, defense, and transference.
- Erikson's Psychosocial Stages Eight lifelong psychosocial crises (e.g., trust vs. mistrust, identity vs. role confusion, integrity vs. despair) map identity formation across the lifespan.
- Object Relations Theory The psychoanalytic view that the psyche is organized around internalized representations ('objects') of early relationships, which shape current functioning.
- Analytical Psychology (Jungian) Psyche organized around the personal and collective unconscious, archetypes, complexes, the shadow, and individuation toward the integrated Self.
- Mentalization-Based Treatment A manualized treatment that cultivates the capacity to understand behavior in terms of mental states, originally developed for borderline personality disorder.
Psychology
- Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning Learning in which a neutral stimulus, paired with a biologically significant one, comes to elicit a conditioned (often involuntary, emotional) response.
- Learned Helplessness Exposure to uncontrollable aversive events produces passivity and failure to learn escape; the reformulated version centers attributional style and hopelessness.
- Self-Determination Theory Three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and an autonomous-vs-controlled motivation continuum explain motivation, well-being, and engagement.
- Big Five / Five-Factor Model The OCEAN traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) give clinicians an empirically robust, dimensional model of personality.
- Clinical Hypnosis Use of focused attention, absorption, and (often Ericksonian/indirect) suggestion in a trance state to alter perception, pain, habit, and symptom experience.
Sociology
- Recovery Model (Social/Identity Recovery) Personal-recovery paradigm in which recovery is a self-defined journey of Connectedness, Hope, Identity, Meaning, and Empowerment rather than mere symptom remission.
- Labeling Theory Being labeled (e.g., 'mentally ill', 'addict') can reshape self-concept and others' responses, sometimes amplifying the very behavior labeled.
- Symbolic Interactionism Meaning is created, sustained, and modified through everyday social interaction and the symbols, especially language, people use to interpret the world.
- Social Capital The networks, norms of reciprocity, and trust (bonding and bridging ties) that constitute a community-level resource linked to health and well-being.
Systems / Org
- Wellness Recovery Action Plan Structured, peer-facilitated self-management planning process covering wellness toolbox, triggers, early-warning signs, and crisis/post-crisis plans.
- Crucial Conversations Model A skills model for high-stakes, high-emotion talks: create mutual purpose and safety, master your stories, 'STATE' your path, and move to action.
- Complex Adaptive Systems Systems of many interacting, adapting agents whose local interactions produce emergent, self-organizing, non-linear, often unpredictable global behavior.
- System Dynamics Method for modeling feedback-rich systems via stocks, flows, delays, and loops to understand counterintuitive dynamic behavior over time.
Trauma / Somatic
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing An 8-phase trauma therapy in which dual-attention bilateral stimulation (eye movements, taps, tones) is paired with focus on a target memory to reprocess it.
- Cognitive Processing Therapy A structured cognitive therapy targeting distorted 'stuck points' (beliefs about safety, trust, power, esteem, intimacy) that maintain PTSD.
- Somatic Experiencing A body-oriented approach that resolves trauma by helping clients track and discharge incomplete survival responses trapped in the nervous system.
- Seeking Safety A present-focused, coping-skills model for co-occurring trauma/PTSD and substance use that prioritizes safety over trauma narrative.
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE Study) The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is a landmark epidemiological investigation, led by Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda, demonstrating that cumulative childhood adversity has a strong, graded (dose-response) relationship to adult physical disease, mental illness, high-risk behavior, and early death.
How to use the Vault
A quick guide to searching, saving, and contributing to the Clinical Wiki.
What is the Therapy Aligned™ Clinical Wiki?
A cross-disciplinary reference map of therapy theories, modalities, and frameworks, drawn from psychology, philosophy, sociology, economics, and beyond, indexed by the populations and problems-for-work each one speaks to. Every article includes sample treatment goals, SMART objectives, and therapeutic framing you can adapt for progress notes. It's a place for clinicians to explore ideas, not a substitute for training, supervision, or primary literature.
What is “The Vault”?
The Vault is the interactive map at the center of the page. Each node is a concept (a theory, modality, population, or problem) and the links between them show how they relate: shared lineage, discipline clusters, and which approaches apply to which populations and problems. Explore it visually, or just search if you already know what you're after.
How do I search the wiki?
Type any theory, modality, population, or problem into the search bar, for example “ACT,” “adolescents,” or “moral injury.” Autocomplete suggests matches as you type and is forgiving of spelling (type “acceptence” and it still finds Acceptance & Commitment Therapy). Results are ranked by what other clinicians have found most useful.
What do the colors and clusters in The Vault mean?
Nodes are grouped by discipline and type, so related approaches sit near each other. Use the Theory-only view to see just modalities and their lineage, or filter by a Population or Problem to light up only the approaches that apply to that clinical context, for instance, everything mapped to “veterans” or to “complicated grief.”
Can I save articles to read later?
Yes. Tap the bookmark on any article to add it to your Library (the icon in the top-right corner of every page). Your Library can hold several named notebooks, so you can group saves by topic, population, or case. Saved articles stay on your device (and sync across devices if you sign in), and you can open your Library anytime to revisit or export them.
How do I use my Library and notebooks?
Open your Library from the bookmark button in the top-right corner of any page. Inside, your saves live in notebooks: you start with one called “Saved,” and can add your own: “Adolescents,” “Grief work,” a case name, with New notebook. Bookmarking an article drops it into Saved; from inside a notebook you can move or copy an article into another notebook, rename or delete notebooks, and Export a single notebook to Markdown for NotebookLM. Sign in with Google to sync your whole Library across devices and to Publish a notebook. You can also browse the Public Library and save notebooks other clinicians have shared straight into your own.
Can the wiki read articles aloud?
Yes. Tap the speaker icon next to an article's title to hear the whole entry, or next to any section heading to hear just that part. A small player lets you pause, stop, and skip back or forward.
How do I get articles into NotebookLM or my own notes?
Open your Library, pick a notebook, and choose Export to NotebookLM (.md). It downloads that notebook's saved articles as a clean Markdown file you can upload into NotebookLM or any notes app. (We strip internal links on export, so you get the text, not a scrape of the whole wiki.)
What is the Public Library, and can I share a notebook?
The Public Library is a shared shelf of clinician-curated notebooks: themed reading lists assembled from the wiki. Browse what others have published, save any to your own Library, or publish your own: open your Library, organize a notebook, and choose Publish. You sign in with Google so each notebook is tied to a verified account, then decide whether to share anonymously or with credit. Publishing is immediate, and you can unpublish anytime. Listings are user-curated and credentials are self-reported, not reviewed or endorsed by Therapy Aligned.
How accurate is the content? Can I rely on it clinically?
Every article is AI-generated to help you explore ideas quickly, and is clearly labeled as such. Treat it as a starting point: verify against primary sources, your training, and supervision before any clinical use; sentences carry a source marker or an “LLM” tag so you can see what's citation-grounded versus model-generated. It's our hope that the clinical community will help improve accuracy and add knowledge through revisions. So much of therapy lives in our experiential knowledge as clinicians, and we want this wiki to be a place where that knowledge can start living and growing; you can suggest a revision on any article.
How do I suggest a new topic or a correction?
Use the Suggest a new article form on this page, or Suggest a revision at the bottom of any article. Add a source (a citation, a CEU, or de-identified clinical experience). We'll draft it and email you a preview to review. Once you approve, our clinical team gives it a final review before it's published.
Who is behind the Clinical Wiki?
It's built by Therapy Aligned, a New Jersey behavioral health group practice that sees clients in person in Metuchen, NJ and virtually across New Jersey, and Therapy Aligned Solutions, its clinical-technology team. Within Therapy Aligned, the Clinical Wiki was created by Andrew H. Kim, LCSW, LCADC, a doctoral candidate (ABD) with extensive experience conducting research and building dissemination products, with and without machine learning and AI at various points in the methodology. The wiki is a free educational resource for clinician learning only, not clinical advice.
Contribute
Spotted something missing from the wiki? Suggest a new article topic or revision. We'll draft it and email you a preview, and our clinical team reviews it before it's published.
Suggest a new article
Propose a theory, modality, or concept you think should be covered.
Suggest a revision
Spotted an error, outdated citation, or want to expand an existing article? Every article has its own Suggest a revision form at the bottom — here's how it works:
- 1Find the article using the search bar above.
- 2Open it and scroll to the "Suggest a revision" section at the bottom.
- 3Submit your proposed change with a source (a citation, CEU, or de-identified practice experience).
- 4Our clinical AI drafts the integration and emails you to review it. Once you approve, our clinical team gives it a final check before it goes live.