Unique Challenges of Multidisciplinary Clinical Science: Perspectives from a Multidisciplinary Team

Clinical psychological research stands to benefit greatly from collaborations that incorporate perspectives from other disciplines. However, the challenges of such collaborative efforts are immense. This commentary provides the perspectives of five frequent collaborators from distinct disciplines (clinical psychology, linguistics, affective and developmental science, vision science, and cognitive neuroscience). We outline three overarching challenges we have encountered during our collaborations: disciplinary bias (i.e., implicit and explicit beliefs about the best ways to gain knowledge), lack of multidisciplinary fluency (i.e., difficulty effectively communicating across disciplines), and inherent risk (i.e., the speculative nature and uncertain career prospects of multidisciplinary work). We then discuss potential solutions to these challenges. We hope that by sharing our experiences and insights, we can promote more productive and impactful clinical science.