Multidisciplinary Clinical Psychological Science: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

The central goal of clinical psychology is to alleviate the suffering caused by mental illness. Anxiety, mood, psychosis, substance use, and other mental disorders impose an immense burden on public health and the economy. Alleviating this burden demands a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms and the development and dissemination of interventions that are effective, sustainable, acceptable, and equitable. Clinical psychology, a field anchored since its inception on the close integration of basic science and clinical practice, is uniquely poised to serve as a hub for this intrinsically multidisciplinary endeavor. Nevertheless, multidisciplinary research is notoriously challenging, and many clinical psychological scientists remain isolated from other areas of psychology and other scientific disciplines. In this special issue, we hope to provide illustrative examples of cutting-edge multidisciplinary clinical psychological research, outline key barriers to multidisciplinary training and collaboration, and provide specific recommendations for a range of stakeholders.