Telles-Correia, Diogo2022-09-072022-09-072017J Eval Clin Pract. 2017 Oct;23(5):994-9981356-1294http://hdl.handle.net/10451/54365© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Mental illness and mental symptoms depend on a construction that results from expert‐based decisions, which, in a specific social and historical context, according to an epistemological framework (how symptoms and disorders are constructed and detected) and an onto-logical framework (how they are defined, what they consist of), identify the behaviors which make up a symptom or a disorder. These theoretical hypotheses, born out of clinical experience together with the historical, sociological, and philosophical analysis of previously established theories are connected to reality through empirical validation. The latter aims to show that these symptoms/diagnoses do really exist.engjournal article10.1111/jep.127501365-2753