With Prof. Dr. Stefan Schmidt

Chairperson: Matthias Ochs

How can routine outcome monitoring support systemic therapy, quality assurance, and psychotherapy research?

In his talk, Stefan Schmidt will introduce SysDok, a routine outcome monitoring (ROM) system specifically designed for systemic therapy. SysDok pursues three complementary objectives: (1) supporting the improvement of therapy outcomes through systematic feedback, (2) providing quality assurance for participating institutions, and (3) creating a research infrastructure for investigating systemic psychotherapy under real-world conditions.

A particular feature of SysDok is its use of computer-adaptive testing (CAT) based on PROMIS measures, combined with a selection of instruments specifically relevant to systemic therapy, including measures of resources and systemic functioning. The system is also designed for systemic treatment settings in which several persons can participate in therapy, allowing the systematic assessment of individuals and relational contexts within the therapeutic process.

SysDok has been implemented over the past two years in 11 German outpatient clinics within the context of psychotherapy training. The database currently comprises data from more than 3,000 patients, providing a growing resource for naturalistic research on systemic psychotherapy. The talk will present the system, its implementation, and initial findings, and will discuss the potential of routine data for advancing empirical research in systemic therapy.

Prof. Dr. phil. Stefan Schmidt, studied psychology in Konstanz and Freiburg and obtained his doctorate in 2002. In 2009, he was appointed to an endowed professorship in Utrecht; from 2010 to 2016, he was a junior professor of Transcultural Health Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). He is trained as a systemic counsellor and systemic supervisor. Since 2018, Stefan Schmidt has been an endowed professor of systemic family therapy at the Dept. of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Freiburg. There, he heads the Academic Section Systemic Health Research as well as the Systemic Psychotherapy Training Institute (SI). His research focuses on systemic family therapy mindfulness-based programmes, meditation and the placebo effect.
List of publications available at https://prof-stefan-schmidt.info/?page_id=89

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