4 - Introduction

Summary

As Bilder makes clear, the birth of RDoC was closely inter-related with growing frustration at the slow pace of etiologic research on the DSM-defined psychiatric disorders. Part of the argument underlying the effort was that these syndromally defined diagnostic categories were at the “wrong level” to propel the needed progress. This should come as no surprise as the charge of the DSM is to develop clinically useful and reliable categories. Given the probable heterogeneity of psychiatric disorders and the massive many-to-many relationships likely between underlying mind/brain dysfunctions and clinical manifestations of psychiatric symptoms and signs, the expectation of a simple single road from DSM categories to etiology is unrealistic. RDoC was based on the assumption that the created matrix, especially the psychological constructs making up the rows, would be a more fruitful focus for etiological research than the DSM categories.