Traditional mental disorders defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) guide nearly all clinical research on mental illness. These diagnoses are based mostly on the experience and theories of influential clinical researchers, rather than systematic empirical research.
It is now clear that DSM diagnoses do not align with key mechanisms in neuroscience, genetics, biological psychiatry, or clinical psychology research. This misalignment slows efforts to find the causes of mental illness, and effective treatments.
This project is working towards finding new constructs to guide clinical research, and to improve the way mental illness is classified in research and practice. To do this, we need to collect data on the different ways people experience a wide variety of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours to understand how these experiences tend to cluster together.
Our study assesses every symptom of every diagnosis described in the DSM-5, as well as every symptom described in a new data-driven classification system called the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP).
We are collecting data on people’s experiences of these symptoms in the past year. We will then statistically analyse the ways in how these symptoms co-occur to find consistent patterns. This will help us re-organise the symptoms to flesh out the HiTOP model to diagnose and classify mental illness.
If you decide to participate in this study, you will be asked to respond to a detailed online survey that asks about your own personal experiences. After some background questions about your life, there are a series of multiple-choice items with a 5-point scale to rate how true (or common) each statement was for you in the past 12 months.
When you complete the survey you can go in the running for a share of AUD$10,000 in pre-paid cash cards as compensation for your time, or donate your entry in the draw to a mental health charity. You will also have the option to view a personalised visualisation of how your results compare to everyone else who participates in the study.
To participate or learn more, click here or go to https://mquni.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_afU6gQKDFQIlI9M.
This study has been approved by the Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committee (Project ID 6715).
Note that this survey includes questions relating to trauma and suicidality, which may be distressing to answer. We include resources for seeking support if you feel distressed throughout the survey, and for connecting with mental health services.
How Better Definitions of Mental Disorders Could Aid Diagnosis and Treatment
The Conversation
Miri Forbes, David Watson, Robert Krueger & Roman Kotov
The article above explains some of the limitations with our current approach to assessing and diagnosing mental illness. You can read more about this here.
How a new method of describing mental illnesses could revolutionise treatment
The Lighthouse
Miri Forbes
You can read more about this here.
Redefining Psychiatric Constructs with Dr. Miri Forbes
A Therapist Can’t Say That
Miri Forbes
You can listen to this podcast here.
A New Approach to Understanding Psychopathology: Insights from the HiTOP Model
Under the Cortex
Miri Forbes
You can listen to this podcast here.
This research paper explains why we need to rethink the diagnosis of mental disorders, and explains how the data-driven dimensions are a useful alternative:
Conway, C. C., Krueger, R. F., & HiTOP Consortium Executive Board. (2021). Rethinking the Diagnosis of Mental Disorders: Data-Driven Psychological Dimensions, Not Categories, as a Framework for Mental-Health Research, Treatment, and Training. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 30(2), 151-158. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963721421990353 (free access to the content available here).
This research paper introduced the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, which is the framework for the current research study:
Kotov, R., Krueger, R. F., Watson, D., Achenbach, T. M., Althoff, R. R., Bagby, R. M., ... & Zimmerman, M. (2017). The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): A dimensional alternative to traditional nosologies. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126(4), 454. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000258 (free access to the content available here).
This research paper started to fill in the gaps of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, by taking a symptom-level approach to statistically modelling data-driven dimensions of mental illness:
Forbes, M. K., Sunderland, M., Rapee, R. M., Batterham, P. J., Calear, A. L., Carragher, N., ... & Krueger, R. F. (2021). A detailed hierarchical model of psychopathology: From individual symptoms up to the general factor of psychopathology. Clinical Psychological Science, 9(2), 139-168. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2167702620954799 (free access to the content available here).
This paper explores the extensive patterns of symptom repetition among the diagnoses in the DSM-5:
Forbes, M. K., Neo, B., Nezami, O. M., Fried, E. I., Faure, K., Michelsen, B., Twose, M., & Dras, M. (2024). Elemental psychopathology: distilling constituent symptoms and patterns of repetition in the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5. Psychological Medicine, 54(5), 886–894. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291723002544 (free access to the content available here).
This paper is the main study from the first stage of our research. It analyses the patterns in how our participants experienced the symptoms described in the DSM-5 and uses those patterns to reorganise the symptoms into a new data-driven model:
Forbes, M. K., Baillie, A., Batterham, P. J., Calear, A., Kotov, R., Krueger, R. F., Markon, K. E., Mewton, L., Pellicano, E., Roberts, M., Rodriguez-Seijas, C., Sunderland, M., Watson, D., Watts, A. L., Wright, A. G. C., & Anna Clark, L. (2024). Reconstructing Psychopathology: A Data-Driven Reorganization of the Symptoms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Clinical Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026241268345 (free access to the content available here).
