According to Lazarus, personality is formed, maintained and changed by classical and operant conditioning, modeling and vicarious learning, thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations, and by unconscious processes (Lesson 8, 2004). The multimodal approach to psychotherapy assumes that unless several discrete but interactive modalities are assessed, treatment is likely to overlook significant concerns (Multimodal, 2004). Initial interviews of patients and the use of a Multimodal Life History Inventory provide an initial review of a client's significant Behavioral affective responses, Sensory reactions, Images, Cognitions, Interpersonal relationships, and the need for Drugs or other biological interventions - the first letters of these assessments giving BASIC I.D., an acronym used in Lazarus's work to denote personality type. These modalities exist in a state of reciprocal transaction and flux, connected by complex chains of behavior and psychophysiological processes.
The therapists usually works together with the client to determine which problems across the BASIC I.D. are salient (Multimodal, 2004). BASIC I. D. provides the basic elements of the interrelated aspects of the personality which need attention by the multimodal approach to therapy (Lesson 8, 2004). Behavior means overt actions, observable and measurable; affect refers to emotions, moods, feelings; sensation refers to seeing, hearing, touching, etc.; imagery refers to mental pictures; cognition refers to ideas, values, etc.; interpersonal refers to interactions with others; and drugs refers to exercise, nutrition, drugs and other biological interventions. Lazarus believes the more of the BASIC I.D. categories engaged by the therapist, the more effective the intervention will be. BASIC I.D. offers breadth rather than depth in the therapeutic approach. The therapist should be a teacher, consultant and role model, and should offer strategies that can be used outsid...