Transdiagnostic approaches to the study of psychopathology and translation to clinical practice.

Comorbidity, dimensionality, and heterogeneity of mental disorder symptoms are major challenges of current classification systems. Accumulating research supports the adoption of transdiagnostic and dimensional approaches to the study of psychopathology to address such challenges. This editorial presents a collection of studies employing transdiagnostic approaches to (a) identify potential common risk factors and underlying mechanisms of youth and early adult psychopathology and (b) translate research findings into early identification of and intervention for symptoms across traditional diagnostic boundaries. The articles assembled in this special issue employ multimodal methods and study designs (e.g., behavioral, neural, psychophysiological, online survey, and randomized controlled trial) in samples of youth spanning early childhood to young adulthood ages. We conclude with several recommendations to best support the goals of transdiagnostic science, namely efforts to identify shared markers of psychopathology and inform translation to clinical practice.