Scientific Network for Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy (SNEPP)

• Applicant: Professor Jan Richter
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563815104

Traditional diagnostic systems define mental disorders as distinct categories of co-occurring but purely descriptive symptom clusters. In doing so, they not only neglect assumptions about the etiological mechanisms underlying the onset or maintenance of the disorder in general, but also fail to take into account commonly observed clinical phenomena such as high heterogeneity within and high comorbidity between diagnostic groups. As a result, clinical research focusing on global diagnostic groups has not yet advanced the development of psychotherapeutic treatments to the extent required. In contrast, experimental psychopathology and psychotherapy (EPP) research aims to investigate the causal relationship between psychological and behavioral processes in maladaptive experience related to symptoms reported by patients with mental disorders. EPP proposes different developmental models for unified symptomatology within individual diagnostic categories as well as transdiagnostic pathogenic mechanisms. While EPP emphasizes a dimensional and multi-layered perspective on mental disorders according to a mechanistic biopsychosocial process model of psychopathology and psychotherapy, it integrates basic psychological research and clinical psychological applied research. In EPP, psychopathology can only be identified and understood based on the basic mechanisms of both adaptive and maladaptive functioning and behavior. The Scientific Network for Experimental Psychopathology and Psychotherapy (SNEPP) will a) promote a formally organized translational and interdisciplinary exchange between basic and applied psychological subdisciplines to promote EPP research, b) increase the quality and quantity of research results from German laboratories at the interface between basic research and clinically applied research, and c) implement the perspective of EPP in university teaching. In detail, we will I) identify the current theoretical and methodological challenges of EPP research in a review article, especially due to the translational orientation, II) summarize the current state of EPP science in a first German-language textbook, and III) disseminate EPP knowledge in the community in method workshops and skills courses. In all aspects, the focus is on supporting early career researchers (ECS), which is why the vast majority of the financially supported network members are ECS. The network is supported by other official senior network members who do not provide financial support but enable intensive exchange between the status groups. The network enables a structured and intensive exchange within the EPP for the first time in Germany, thus helping to develop the potential of the research field nationally and internationally for the development of necessary innovative treatment options for mental illnesses.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks