Psychopathology and Developmental Trajectories

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last 50 years, there has been increasing interest in the definition of psychopathology, psychological disorders, mental disorders, and distress. However, there is still a lot of work to be done, and future research is needed to address these topics, along two main different but interrelated directions: a general framework useful for understanding both continuity and discontinuity among the psychopathological features during the entire lifecycle, also taking into account individual, relational, social, and environmental protective and risk factors, and an overall approach useful for intervention and able to take into account all of the previously discussed aspects. A lifespan approach in psychopathology, focused on developmental trajectories that are focused on all of the phases of a lifecycle, rather than on specific critical steps in an individual’s life, might offer a new way to think about causation, within a complex multilevel causal model, characterized by interdependence among the different levels and by mutually reinforcing effects, operating over time. We also need a new approach to address prevention and intervention. As a part of this Topic, we invite scholars to discuss these topics and to share their experiences in these fields, with a multidisciplinary/transdisciplinary approach. We welcome research, scoping reviews, systematic reviews, and/or meta-analyses of these newer approaches in the study of psychopathology, according to the perspective of developmental trajectories.

Dr. Donatella Rita Petretto
Dr. Carmelo Masala
Prof. Dr. Stefan Bogaerts
Topic Editors