Many Birds, One Stone: Collinearity in Psychotherapy Treatment

Collinearity is typically a statistical error in financial analysis, but in psychotherapy, it is the ultimate feature-not-a-bug.

Fix the first thing, fix the second thing? Fix a third thing? How many birds can you kill with one stone?

Collinearity is typically a statistical error in financial analysis, but in psychotherapy, it is the ultimate feature-not-a-bug.

As a psychotherapist, you should be writing down what your client is saying. Some of what I write down are abstract complaints, then the answers to my follow-up about the concrete details of those abstract complaints. For instance, “people-pleasing” is an abstract complaint; however, I can then ask about specific instances in the client’s long term and short term history. This can lead to a second abstract complaint, such as “low self-confidence,” which can lead to a third abstract complaint, “lowered mood.”

We can see the first two variables are clearly linked together by a lack of ability to advocate for one’s self. I don’t need in depth statistical analysis, I only have to establish axiomatically that low self-confidence and people pleasing both contain a the exact same significant variable. If you choose to not speak what you believe in a situation, and you regret not doing so afterwards, this is the concrete content of the two abstract complaints of “people-pleasing” as well as “low self-confidence.”

A treatment plan can then consist of a homework assignment which involves speaking what one believes in situations in the most ideal way possible. This may involve not provoking the other person on purpose, but it also might be speaking in a more conflictual way. Conflict can lead to lowered mood, so once again we are dealing with collinearity in a big way.

Collinearity must be taken into account immediately and intuitively by the psychotherapist in a psychotherapy session, but it is something which is not discussed vary often because it is mostly a feature in something called “linear regression,” which is a financial statistics method for establishing correlation.

Correlation may not equal causation, but if you in your personal life have multiple abstract complaints, you might want to assess the concrete instances where this complaint became an issue, and see if they are not pulled by the same gravity and able to be addressed in a simple and effective manner.