Robert Krueger and Colin DeYoung explore a New Way to Understand Mental Health
Robert F. Krueger and Colin DeYoung, faculty, are helping to reshape the way we think about mental health, focusing on symptoms spread across spectra rather than on distinct illnesses with rigid boundaries. In a recent publication, “Examining the Foundational Assumptions of the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology,” Krueger and DeYoung discussed an approach named the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP). As a co-founder of the HiTOP consortium, Krueger has been developing HiTOP since 2015, with DeYoung joining in 2016. DeYoung is the senior author of the paper.
For many years, systems like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) have grouped disorders into separate categories despite high comorbidity across categories and variations in symptoms, causes, and/or treatment responses among those who share the same diagnosis. With HiTOP, Krueger and colleagues organize mental health conditions differently, using a data-driven, dimensional, and hierarchical structure to study how symptoms group together. By looking at symptoms in this new way, they are seeking to transform both scientific inquiry and our clinical understanding of mental illness, improving how professionals diagnose and treat patients.
Robert F. Krueger, PhD, Hathaway Distinguished Professor, Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota; faculty in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Program (CSPR).
Colin G. DeYoung, PhD, Professor of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota; director of the DeYoung Personality Lab.
Composed by Nguyen Kiet Pham, communications assistant.
