Psychopathology of mental disorders

This chapter explores the question: What is a mental disorder and how best should we assess it in terms of social complexity? There is general agreement that, when it comes to psychopathology, what matters most is that a person is legitimately troubled by their emotional, cognitive, behavioural or social difficulties. In short, they are suffering. There is less agreement, however, on what constitutes a mental disorder. For example, are a person’s psychological difficulties a brain disease or latent psychological construct? Or are they a scientific classification that points to the clustering of sets of psychological symptoms that have no fundamental underlying biological existence? The former view has historically dominated. The latter - referred to as the new science of mental disorders - is fast becoming the major alternative, with the potential to override the former. Our goal in this chapter is to review this new field and its accomplishments and controversies.