4. Conclusions
A final point worth noting is the argument concerning whether module content is all that is important. For example, the modular approach to design – as described so far – emphasizes specific clinical strategies as the “main ingredients” of psychotherapy, so to speak. Reasonable evidence exists to challenge this notion, for example in the literature on therapeutic relationship (Norcross, 2002). It should therefore be emphasized that representing therapy content as a division into practice elements and coordinating algorithms is not the only way to conceptualize the enterprise of therapeutic intervention and package it into modules. Other representations are possible that could yield a rather different example, yet could still be modular in nature (e.g., developing modules to represent therapeutic processes or relationships rather than specific clinical strategies). Decisions regarding which aspects of therapy (e.g., process, strategy) are most important for achieving its goals are somewhat orthogonal to the potential benefits of modularity in design. Such decisions will likely remain the subject of great debate in the field.
