Cohort studies and the development of psychopathology: commentary on the Great Smoky Mountain Study

Excerpt

In 1984, the developmental psychologist Dante Cicchetti [1] proclaimed the emergence of a new paradigm for the study of the development of mental illness, an approach he called developmental psychopathology. In contrast to the dominant research paradigms of that time that focused primarily on cross-sectional, case-control comparisons, developmental psychopathology emphasized the continuity between normal and abnormal development, the need for longitudinal methods to investigate the early manifestations of mental illness, and the importance of multidimensional, biopsychosocial approaches. Although warmly embraced, Cicchetti’s pronouncement was more aspirational than descriptive. At the time, there was very little data to support the utility of the developmental psychopathology approach he was advocating. …