- Conway, Christopher C;
- Forbes, Miriam K;
- Forbush, Kelsie T;
- Fried, Eiko I;
- Hallquist, Michael N;
- Kotov, Roman;
- Mullins-Sweatt, Stephanie N;
- Shackman, Alexander J;
- Skodol, Andrew E;
- South, Susan C;
- Sunderland, Matthew;
- Waszczuk, Monika A;
- Zald, David H;
- Afzali, Mohammad H;
- Bornovalova, Marina A;
- Carragher, Natacha;
- Docherty, Anna R;
- Jonas, Katherine G;
- Krueger, Robert F;
- Patalay, Praveetha;
- Pincus, Aaron L;
- Tackett, Jennifer L;
- Reininghaus, Ulrich;
- Waldman, Irwin D;
- Wright, Aidan GC;
- Zimmermann, Johannes;
- Bach, Bo;
- Bagby, R Michael;
- Chmielewski, Michael;
- Cicero, David C;
- Clark, Lee Anna;
- Dalgleish, Tim;
- DeYoung, Colin G;
- Hopwood, Christopher J;
- Ivanova, Masha Y;
- Latzman, Robert D;
- Patrick, Christopher J;
- Ruggero, Camilo J;
- Samuel, Douglas B;
- Watson, David;
- Eaton, Nicholas R
For more than a century, research on psychopathology has focused on categorical diagnoses. Although this work has produced major discoveries, growing evidence points to the superiority of a dimensional approach to the science of mental illness. Here we outline one such dimensional system-the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)-that is based on empirical patterns of co-occurrence among psychological symptoms. We highlight key ways in which this framework can advance mental-health research, and we provide some heuristics for using HiTOP to test theories of psychopathology. We then review emerging evidence that supports the value of a hierarchical, dimensional model of mental illness across diverse research areas in psychological science. These new data suggest that the HiTOP system has the potential to accelerate and improve research on mental-health problems as well as efforts to more effectively assess, prevent, and treat mental illness.