Toward a Cognitive-Behavioral Classification System for Mental Disorders

• DSM-5 uses arbitrary cutoffs to define mental disorders
• RDoC offers a biological alternative, but lacks clinical utility
• The complex causal network approach moves beyond the latent disease model
• The cognitive-behavioral model offers a possible classification framework.
• The cognitive-behavioral model is consistent with the complex causal network approach.

As is true for its predecessors, the recently published DSM-5 uses arbitrary criteria and cutoffs to define categories of mental disorders that are of questionable validity and that provide no guidance for treatment. Recently, the NIMH introduced an alternative classification system, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). Both the DSM-5 and the RDoC initiative make the strong assumption that psychological problems are expressions of specific latent disease entities. In contrast, the complex causal network approach conceptualizes psychological problems as mutually interacting, often reciprocally reinforcing, elements of a complex causal network. The cognitive behavioral model offers a classification framework that is compatible with the complex causal network approach and provides a treatment-relevant alternative to the latent disease model that is the basis for the DSM-5 and the RDoC initiative.