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This volume provides a comprehensive account of the diagnosis, phenomenology, developmental pathways, correlates, causes, and outcomes of psychopathology in children. Our understanding of developmental psychopathology has grown exponentially over the past several decades. New conceptual frameworks and findings, as well as advances in knowledge and methods, continue to further our understanding of childhood disorders, as well as our ability to assess and treat children with problems. However, this understanding is tempered by the often unsystematic and fragmented fashion in which research findings in child psychopathology have accrued, and by the conceptual and research complexities inherent in the study of such a rapidly changing and socially embedded organism as the child. In this introductory chapter, we address several central themes and issues related to conceptualizing childhood …