Evaluate solutions against costs, benefits, and fit
Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
- Why it works: Emotion-driven decision-making in depression is biased toward worst-case outcomes and underestimates capacity to cope. Structured evaluation introduces a more balanced assessment by explicitly requiring that benefits, not just costs, are considered. The process also surfaces implicit values and constraints that would otherwise bias solution choice without awareness.
- Evidence: Established clinical or therapeutic practice.
- Avoid: Choosing the solution with the least discomfort rather than the most effectiveness — the evaluation step should optimise for the stated goal, not for avoiding anxiety.
Why it works
Emotion-driven decision-making in depression is biased toward worst-case outcomes and underestimates capacity to cope. Structured evaluation introduces a more balanced assessment by explicitly requiring that benefits, not just costs, are considered. The process also surfaces implicit values and constraints that would otherwise bias solution choice without awareness.
How to do it
- 1Rate each solution on a simple 1–5 scale for: likelihood of solving the problem, personal cost (time, money, discomfort), and alignment with your values.
- 2Shortlist the two or three highest-rated options.
- 3For each, briefly consider: what could go wrong, and is that acceptable?
- 4Choose the solution that best balances effectiveness, feasibility, and fit — not the "perfect" one.
What the evidence says
Clinical practiceStructured decision-making is a component of PST protocols with RCT support; the multi-criteria evaluation approach is consistent with multi-attribute decision theory and clinical decision-making research.
Honest caveat: The specific rating scales used vary across PST implementations; no single evaluation format has been demonstrated superior in clinical trials.
Common mistake
Choosing the solution with the least discomfort rather than the most effectiveness — the evaluation step should optimise for the stated goal, not for avoiding anxiety.
IX Coach provides a simple scoring interface for each solution, calculates a composite score weighted by the factors you care most about, and highlights which solution ranks highest.
Practice this with IX Coach →