General psychiatric disease: a unifying nosographic framework for psychiatry with applications across psychopathology, pharmacology, psychotherapy, and cognition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25118/2763-9037.2026.v16.1633Keywords:
general psychiatric disease, nosography, psychopathology, comorbidity, psychiatric spectrum, transdiagnostic, neuropsychiatry, pharmacology, psychotherapyAbstract
Introduction: Modern psychiatry has been dominated, for over four decades, by the categorical diagnostic model codified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Objective: To introduce and systematize General Psychiatric Disease (GPD), a unifying nosographic framework proposing that diverse psychiatric conditions represent variable clinical expressions of a common functional-etiopathogenic disturbance, and to evaluate its explanatory capacity across five major clinical domains. Study design: Conceptual review and theoretical synthesis. Methodology: Integrative conceptual review of evidence from psychopathology, neuropsychiatry, clinical genetics, pharmacology, and psychotherapy, applied across five clinical domains: the neurodevelopmental spectrum (autism, dysphasia, dyslexia, ADHD), mood disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, and neuropsychiatric syndromes. Results: GPD provides a coherent account of: (a) high psychiatric comorbidity rates; (b) symptom migration across the lifespan; (c) pharmacological cross-categoricality, and (d) shared genetic architecture across diagnostic categories. Originally proposed in Caixeta et al. (2014, 2018), constitutes the foundational framework from which advances in psychopathology, pharmacology, psychotherapy, and cognition can be systematically derived. Conclusion: GPD represents a paradigmatic shift in psychiatric nosography. Without replacing categorical diagnosis, it provides the theoretical substrate for a more integrated and scientifically productive psychiatry, with direct implications for research, clinical practice, training, and drug development.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Giovanna Azevedo Rodrigues, Fernando Martins Castanheira Júnior, Marcelo Ferreira Caixeta
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