Language or syndrome? Investigating the origins of the general psychopathology factor through large language model embeddings

LLM embeddings reveal that the linguistic fabric of symptom items contains a shadow of the p-factor, yet real-world co-occurrence embeds additional, diagnosis-relevant information. Our findings position LLM-driven text analytics as a new lens for probing psychiatric constructs while underscoring the complex interplay between linguistic semantics and symptom co-occurrence in shaping our understanding of psychiatric constructs.