Theory construction in the psychopathology domain: A multiphase approach

Our understanding of mental disorders is facilitated by our theoretical explanations of them. At present, these explanations are practically and theoretically insufficient; possessing widespread conceptual issues (e.g., lack of richness and specificity) and producing therapeutic treatments that lack effectiveness. In our view, one reason for such issues is that we are currently without a systematic method for the construction of these explanations. We therefore present to the reader the Phenomena Detection Method for Theory Construction (PDM-TC), a preliminary systematic framework for the construction of psychopathological explanation comprising three phases: (a) selecting an appropriate explanatory target, (b) developing a rich compositional description, and (c) developing a quality etiological explanation. Using theories of eating disorders as a sustained example, we demonstrate how current explanations of psychopathology execute the tasks associated with each of these phases insufficiently and how the conceptual issues they evidence can be ameliorated by the PDM-TC framework.