The Self-Identification Program (SIP): A Clinically Implemented Third-Wave CBT Deepening Dysfunctional Self-Identification in Mood Disorders

Third-wave cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT3) have progressively shifted the focus of psychotherapy from symptom reduction to process-based and transdiagnostic mechanisms of change, emphasizing self-identification as a core dimension. Within this evolution, the Self-Identification Program (SIP) represents a conceptual and clinical advancement particularly relevant to mood disorders, where maladaptive self-identification, rumination, and self-judgment play central roles. SIP directly targets dysfunctional self-identification—the reification of transient and maladaptive mental contents as defining features of a self—through a framework integrating the three levels of CBT3: mindfulness (CBT3.1), loving/kindness and compassion (CBT3.2), and deconstructive insight into the nature of a self (CBT3.3). Theoretically, SIP aligns with dimensional psychiatry (AMPD, HiTOP, RDoC) and recent advances in behavioral linguistics (Relational Frame Theory) and psychotherapy (Process-Based Behavioral Therapy). By integrating linguistic, affective, and neuroscientific perspectives, SIP bridges contextual behavioral science and contemplative practice, offering a unified, process-based model of identity transformation. Clinically, SIP extends CBT3 beyond mindfulness and loving/kindness and/or compassion training to specifically address the mechanism by which self-identification becomes a source of suffering—namely, the mistaken identification with an independent and permanent self. In doing so, SIP provides a novel, mechanistically grounded pathway toward enduring change in depressive and bipolar spectrum disorders.