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Theory & Psychology
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Classification of Psychopathology

Goals and Methods in an Empirical Approach

G. Scott Acton

Rochester Institute of Technology, scott.acton{at}rit.edu

Jason J. Zodda

Rochester Institute of Technology, JZodda{at}Gmail.com

Many have criticized the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), and few regard it as a vehicle of truth, yet its most serious limitation is that its frank operationism in defining manifest categories has distracted attention from theories about what is going on at the latent level. We sketch a Generalized Interpersonal Theory of Personality and Psychopathology and apply it to interpersonal aspects of depression to illustrate how structural individual differences combine with functional dynamic processes to cause interpersonal behavior and affect. Such a causal account relies on a realist ontology in which manifest diagnoses are only a means to learning about the latent distribution, whether categorical or dimensional. Comorbidity of DSM diagnoses suggests that dimensionality will be the rule, not the exception, with internalization and externalization describing common diagnoses.

Key Words: Big Five • circumplex • complementarity • depression • Dimcat • expressed emotion

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 3, 373-399 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354305053220
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?