Mental disorders have shown a wide range of emotion, cognitive and social problems that affect their daily functioning. Such behavioural and clinical manifestations have also been shared by different mental disorders. The underling mechanisms have not yet known. The use of a transdiagnostic approach to investigating mental disorders may offer us a unique opportunity to understand the the common and unique mechanisms of common symptoms among different mental disorders.

Dr.Raymond Chan from the Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience (NACN) Laboratory, CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, has jointly organized an online symposium with Prof. Yan-yu Wang from the School of Psychology, Weifang Medical University to specifically examine these unresolved issues shared by various mental disorders on July 22nd 2020. The main theme of this symposium was “Crossing boundaries of mental disorders: Along and across the spectrum of disorders”. Prof. Hong-wei Sun, the vice president of Weifang Medical University gave an opening speech to the symposium. More than 40 faculty members and postgraduate students attended this 1-day symposium. A total of 9 presentations were reported by team members from both Beijing and Weifang. At end of the symposium, all the presenters and attended agreed that we need to take a transdiagnostic approach for us to better understand the aetiology and psychopathology of mental disorders, and hence, to formulate a better therapeutic programmes for mental disorders.

This symposium was supported by the Virtual Research Centre for Transdiagnostic Clinical and Subclinical Groups that based at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.