Empirical Psychopathology Classification and the Importance of Trans-Diagnostic Dimensional Factors.

Assessment and diagnosis of psychopathology is clearly one of the most important pursuits in mental health research and practice. It also is one of the most controversial activities in the current zeitgeist. Classically, psychopathology has been described using hundreds of putatively discrete categories delineated based on expert clinical experience and consensus. The ability to assess and study classic psychopathology categories was a critical development in the history of psychiatry, closely linked to the development of the DSM-III.1 .