The need for a behavioural science focus in research on mental health and mental disorders

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Hans-Ulrich Wittchen
  • Susanne Knappe
  • Gerhard Andersson
  • Ricardo Araya
  • Rosa M. Banos Rivera
  • Michael Barkham
  • Per Bech
  • Tom Beckers
  • Thomas K. Berger
  • Carmen Berrocal
  • Cristina M. Botella
  • Per Carlbring
  • Guy Chouinard
  • Francesc Colom
  • Claudio Csillag
  • Pim Cuijpers
  • Daniel David
  • Paul Maria Gerardus Emmelkamp
  • Cecilia Ahmoi Essau
  • Giovanni Andrea Fava
  • Thomas Goschke
  • Dirk Hermans
  • Stefan G. Hofmann
  • Wolfgang Lutz
  • Peter Muris
  • Thomas H. Ollendick
  • Filip Raes
  • Winfried Rief
  • Eliana Tossani
  • Saskia Van Der Oord
  • Bram Vervliet
  • Josep Maria Haro
  • Gunter Schumann
Psychology as a science offers an enormous diversity of theories, principles, and methodological approaches to understand mental health, abnormal functions and behaviours and mental disorders. A selected overview of the scope, current topics as well as strength and gaps in Psychological Science may help to depict the advances needed to inform future research agendas specifically on mental health and mental disorders. From an integrative psychological perspective, most maladaptive health behaviours and mental disorders can be conceptualized as the result of developmental dysfunctions of psychological functions and processes as well as neurobiological and genetic processes that interact with the environment. The paper presents and discusses an integrative translational model, linking basic and experimental research with clinical research as well as population-based prospective-longitudinal studies. This model provides a conceptual framework to identify how individual vulnerabilities interact with environment over time, and promote critical behaviours that might act as proximal risk factors for ill-health and mental disorders. Within the models framework, such improved knowledge is also expected to better delineate targeted preventive and therapeutic interventions that prevent further escalation in early stages before the full disorder and further complications thereof develop. In contrast to conventional "personalized medicine" that typically targets individual (genetic) variation of patients who already have developed a disease to improve medical treatment, the proposed framework model, linked to a concerted funding programme of the "Science of Behaviour Change", carries the promise of improved diagnosis, treatment and prevention of health-risk behaviour constellations as well as mental disorders.
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
Volume23
Issue numberS1
Pages (from-to)28-40
Number of pages13
ISSN1049-8931
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.01.2014

Bibliographical note

Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Funding number: 144824

    Research areas

  • Health sciences - Agenda, Behaviour change, Health behaviour, Mental disorder, Mental health, Personalized medicine, Psychology, Translation
  • Psychology

DOI