The rise and rise of developmental perspectives in child psychology and psychiatry

When developmental psychopathology emerged as a discipline in the late 1970s and early 1980s, its proponents were as careful to explain what it was not, as they were to define what it was (e.g. Sroufe & Rutter, 1984). In particular, they differentiated developmental psychopathology from child psychiatry, which is primarily concerned with the differential diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of childhood disorders. In contrast, developmental psychopathology was defined as the study of the origins and course of individual patterns of behavioral maladaptation, whatever the age of onset, whatever the causes, whatever the transformations in behavioral manifestation, and however complex the course of the developmental pattern may be' (Sroufe & Rutter, 1984, p. 18).