ABSTRACT
Cognitive behavioral therapy most likely works because the patient-clinician dialogue directly addresses the psychodynamic issues that are the patient's mental illness. To many mental health professionals, the DSM-III, DSM-IV and DSM-5 appeared to offer the best possible story about diagnosing mental illness. The DSM-5 Task Force made the same kind of mistakes in creating the criteria for diagnosing schizophrenia. The fact is that biological psychiatry lacks a ground that would permit the kind of exploration, through trial and error, followed by more trial and more error, which has allowed medicine to advance to its present level. Instead of attempting to find biomarkers for DSM syndromes and diagnostic categories—one justification for creating "categorical" psychiatric diagnosis in the first place—the RDoC project will try to identify biomarkers that correspond to the distinct disturbances of emotion, thought and behavior that are common to all mental illnesses.
