Single case designs in clinical practice: A contemporary CBS perspective on why and how to

•Single-case designs are useful in clinical practice.•Skill with Single-case designs supplements the toolbox of evidence-based practice.•This article surveys clinical implementation of Single-case designs.

There remains great potential for collaborative, participatory advancement of research through the generation of Single-case designs (SCD) by contextual behavioral practitioners working in applied settings. Development of such communities of applied scientists is core to the vision of contextual behavioral science (CBS). Beyond their contributions to science, SCD may also serve a useful role in clinical practice as means of validating clinical decisions, trouble-shooting treatment failures, and overall building competency in the kind of clinical decision-making that is a hallmark of the CBS clinician. This article is not a thorough review of SCD methodology; instead it provides an overview of issues related to implementation of SCD in outpatient psychotherapy practice, supplementing the many excellent methodological reviews already available and updating previous arguments about the value of this approach for our contemporary context.