We need to personalize (mental) health, not only psychopathology.

Abstract

In their introduction to the special issue on addressing clinical heterogeneity in psychopathology through brain science, Damme and Mittal (see record 2025-40884-001) highlighted the transformative potential of using brain data to uncover variability in mental health diagnoses and their underlying mechanisms. The articles in this issue exemplify this, such as Reimann et al. (see record 2025-40884-008), who demonstrated how neurodevelopmental differences, like variations in structural properties, reveal subgroups with unique cognitive and clinical profiles among youths with similar psychopathology levels. This commentary builds on these important insights while proposing a critical broadening of focus. While much attention has been given to individual-specific psychopathology, the personalized "end goal" of treatment-defining individual-specific healthy states-has been largely neglected in the literature. Addressing both the starting and end points of interventions will deepen our understanding of psychopathology by integrating diverse definitions of health, ensuring treatment approaches are tailored to the uniqueness of each individual. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).