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 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 a symposium with Prof. Yan-yu Wang from the School of Psychology, Weifang Medical University on September 13th 2021. This main aim of this symposium is to advance our knowledge of transdiagnositc study of clinical and subclinical samples using a multidisciplinary approach. Prof. Hong-wei Sun, the vice president of Weifang Medical University gave an opening speech to the symposium. More than 100 faculty members and postgraduate students attended this 1-day symposium. This workshop was held at the School of Psychology, Weifang Medical University and was run in a combination of offline and online presentations. A total of 11 presentations were reported by colleagues and students from the Institute of Psychology, Weifang Medical University, Shanghai Mental Health Centre, Suzhou Guangji Hospital, and Beijing Children Hospital.

At end of the symposium, all the presenters and participants have discussed the unaddressed issues concerning mental disorders and agreed that we need to work together with a multidisciplinary approach for us to better understand the aetiology and psychopathology of 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.