Unraveling the Structure of Psychopathology: Transdiagnostic Approaches, Risk Factors, and Complex Pathways

Proponents of a transdiagnostic approach to the structure of psychopathology note its potential advantages over taxonomic or dimensional approaches that focus on specific symptom types for understanding both the structure of psychopathology and transdiagnostic risk factors, as well as potential clinical applications. In this chapter, we examine the application of transdiagnostic hierarchical and bifactor models to young children who participated in PACT. Then we identify both transdiagnostic and symptom-type specific risk factors in these children. We examined both the main effects and the suitability of multidomain models to determine the pathways across domains that were either transdiagnostic or possibly contributed to the uniqueness of paths to specific symptom types. A hierarchical approach to the structure of psychopathology was better suited to this age group than a bifactor approach and more useful in understanding the transdiagnostic and symptom-specific risk factors for these disorders.