Practice Innovations, Vol 10(3), Sep 2025, 237-250; doi:10.1037/pri0000277
Case reports about psychotherapy patients have significantly contributed to psychological scholarship. Although such writing can benefit the mental health field by illuminating novel interventions and describing unique clinical presentations, there are also risks involved when writing about real people. When patients are asked to serve as the subject of a case report, they may feel pressured to agree to their provider’s request or may feel their provider’s needs take precedence over their own. If patients are not appropriately disguised in the report, their privacy is at risk, especially given the access to most written information via the internet. If there is too much patient disguise, case validity may be threatened, leading to inaccurate interpretations by the reader. This article provides guidance and recommendations for writing case reports about psychotherapy patients. The informed consent and patient disguise process are described, and a fictional case illustrates the concepts. Clinical, ethical, legal, multicultural, and feminist considerations are addressed. The article concludes with a Best Practices Guide for clinicians to create their own individualized plans for writing psychotherapy case reports. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)