The work behind PHCF.
The Positive Health Classification Framework was developed by Paul D. Kremer as a sustained programme of conceptual, classification and research work concerned with positive mental health, clinical formulation and the wider systems used to describe mental health.
Paul D. Kremer
The PHCF begins from a practical classification problem. Contemporary mental health systems provide sophisticated ways to describe disorder, symptoms, risk and functioning. Positive mental health is measured in many ways, but those measures do not yet form a comparable clinical classification language.
The framework develops that proposition into a Universal Core, a classification manual, structured recording resources and an explicit programme of empirical testing.
Related work has examined broader models of mental health, including environmental determinants and multilevel pathways. The PHCF extends that interest into the question of what a positive-health classification system would need to contain, exclude and demonstrate empirically.
Build the framework in public, but do not overstate it.
The site separates conceptual claims, published work, developmental resources, research questions and verified developments in external classification systems.
From idea to testable system.
Conceptual framework
Define the information positive-health classification should add and distinguish it from neighbouring constructs.
Classification manual
Translate the architecture into a usable recording and interpretive system.
Research programme
Test reliability, validity, utility, cultural assumptions, prediction and responsiveness to change.
Open scholarly discussion
Use contemporary classification developments as a reason to debate what mental health systems currently capture and what they omit.