A historical perspective on the discipline of developmental psychopathology

Abstract

One way of measuring the success of a new scientific discipline is to examine its impact on the current literature. The recent increase in the number of books, articles, and journals dealing with developmental psychopathology reflects a growing recognition of the significance of this discipline within the behavioral sciences. For example, several journals, including the American Journal of Psychiatry, The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , and The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , have published special sections on the topic. Moreover, three journals have devoted one or more special issues to the field of developmental psychopathology – Child Development (Cicchetti, 1984b), The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (Stevenson, 1985), and New Directions for Child Development (Cicchetti & Beeghly, 1987; Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen, 1984a; Nannis & Cowan, 1988; Rizley & Cicchetti, 1981; Selman & Yando, 1980; Tronick & Field, 1986). Furthermore, the most recent edition of the Handbook of Child Psychology (Mussen, 1983) contained the first chapter on the topic of developmental psychopathology (Rutter & Garmezy, 1983) since the publication of its first edition over 40 years ago. In addition, textbooks, handbooks, and scholarly references are appearing increasingly in the literature (Achenbach, 1974/1982; Cicchetti & Beeghly, 1990; Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989; Gollin, 1984; Lewis & Miller, in press; Rutter, Izard, & Read, 1986; Santostefano, 1978; Trad, 1986, 1987; Wenar, 1982; Zigler & Glick, 1986). Moreover, there is now a journal devoted exclusively to the discipline of developmental psychopathology, entitled Development and Psychopathology .