From deconstruction to reconstruction: A search for natural kinds in developmental psychopathology.

Abstract

A "natural kind" is a specific classification that identifies some structure of truth and reality, a delimited entity. Psychiatric disorders are not natural kinds. As one moves from physics and chemistry to biology and medicine, natural kinds degrade, and the boundaries of differentiating phenomena become less clear. Within psychiatry, the categorization of psychopathology has further ontological challenges, especially across development. We suggest that to identify and isolate clinical subgroups, it is critical to integrate external validators in an iterative process, with the goal of linking classification to treatments with maximal clinical benefit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).