Miri Forbes
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miriforbes.bsky.social
Miri Forbes
@miriforbes.bsky.social
3.5K followers 1.1K following 520 posts
Quantitative Psychopathology | Associate Professor at Macquarie University on Wallumattagal land | views mine | she/her
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miriforbes.bsky.social
If you're a member of the HiTOP Society, I hope you'll consider voting for me for President 💛

I'd be delighted to lead us in this new chapter

Ballots went out today so we can join the current deluge of exciting election results

And whether or not you vote for me - please do vote!
A photo of me and statement I wrote about running for President/President-Elect of the new HiTOP Society: "I’m so excited to be nominated as President for our new HiTOP Society! I’ve been part of HiTOP for a decade now and have worked hard to advance both the science and the scientific organisation. My research has focused on strengthening the structural validity evidence at HiTOP’s foundations, and I’m committed to improving the model as much as we can. My leadership in HiTOP started with co-chairing the Revisions Workgroup in 2018, and leading the development of our revisions protocol. This role gave me a seat on the Executive Committee of the Consortium where I’ve worked to strengthen the organisation—for example, proposing and writing our monthly updates for six years, building and maintaining our new website, and using feedback from our members to develop a strategic plan to address the issues many of you raised. That work has also underpinned our shift to a society model, and I would be very proud to have the opportunity to lead us in this new chapter. I have some ideas of specific things we can work on—setting up awards and small grants for members, for example—but my main focus would be hearing from you all and working to build an organisation that reflects our shared values and ambitions in shaping the future of HiTOP."
November 5, 2025 at 10:06 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
The paper also adds an empirically derived version of the lower levels of the model, and a revised map between HiTOP and the DSM based on the results (complete with an interactive visualisation we’re working on: hitop-viz.web.app/paper.html)
A plot showing how the symptoms of DSM diagnoses (those in the SCID-5-RV) map onto our model that rebuilt HiTOP from individual symptoms. There is a mix of evident heterogeneity with symptoms splitting across many different empirically derived constructs as well as some homogeneity with substantial sets of symptoms being grouped together.
November 4, 2025 at 8:27 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
I’ve spent the last 8 years(!) working from the position that HiTOP relies too much on analyses of traditional diagnoses, baking in limitations of the DSM, and that we need to move to symptom-level analyses to fix it

It turns out that rebuilding HiTOP from the ground up doesn’t change much 💀

1/
A figure of the results from our study, showing a model that looks remarkably similar to the official HiTOP model. There are also important differences like a pathological introversion domain and a combined hypomania/disinhibition dimension.
November 4, 2025 at 8:27 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Look no further for an *excellent* overview of HiTOP! This chapter for the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Dimensional Models in Psychopathology does a fantastic job of pulling everything together.

Tam Pham is an absolute superstar and I feel very lucky to work with her ✨

osf.io/preprints/ps...
An adapted version of the current HiTOP model, including 'psychosis' and 'emotional dysfunction' superspectra and omitting the homogeneous symptom component/maladaptive traits lists
September 29, 2025 at 9:37 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
I’m thinking a lot this week about my beautiful cousin Will who we lost to suicide last year. I love this article his sister Alice is featured in, which captures Will’s spirit and Alice’s love and grief.
A screenshot of a newspaper article called 'Out of the Shadows: The walk to remember lost ones and raise awareness' with a subtitle 'Stepping into the light to save lives' A photo of me with my cousins Will (left) and Alice (right) when they were kids
September 9, 2025 at 9:46 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Dan my family is really going all in supporting your career transition. Some excellent contributions from my daughter capturing a broader range of the academic experience
An ink and watercolour artwork of a variety of dead fish at a fish market - some “drying on a table” (according to my daughter, the artist) and some hanging up from their mouths with crosses for eyes. There is also a basket of fish and a sign that says “FISH 1500$ each”
August 10, 2025 at 9:12 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Hahah you’re really good at this Katherine!

I have some more source material from drawing today:
August 9, 2025 at 10:01 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
How are you going today on a scale from blissfully ignorant to abject horror?
August 8, 2025 at 11:43 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Took the day off to paint some fishies
A variety of colourful watercolour fish
August 8, 2025 at 9:38 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Hahah totally. My mental image is this one:
A thumbs up emoji where the thumb has another hand on it giving a middle finger
August 7, 2025 at 1:47 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
I asked it for ideas to name a cluster of items, but I still don't have a good name. Any ideas on what the cross-cutting thread could be here? We started with 'Dyscontrol' and are currently on 'Perseveration and (fear of) dyscontrol'
A screenshot of a list of symptoms: I did things that were self-destructive. I felt or feared that I might lose control of myself or ‘go crazy’. I felt out of control. I was worried I might be suddenly overwhelmed by fear, and that this might make me lose control, have a heart attack, or ‘go crazy’. I had trouble changing how I was doing something, even when it wasn't working. I got fixated on certain things and couldn't stop. I had thoughts, urges, or images in my mind that were intrusive or unwanted. I tried to ignore or get rid of intrusive or unwanted thoughts, urges, or images in my mind.
June 4, 2025 at 1:01 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Another one today! I’m hoping to be included for another seven months at least
A screenshot of a ‘new onlinefirst articles’ email update for a paper published online in October 2024
May 13, 2025 at 12:01 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Fixed it 😎
An infographic titled 'How Journals Make a Killing' that explains the profit in academic publishing, the life cycle of a journal article, and the cost for tax payers
May 8, 2025 at 12:33 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Fleshed out this awesome slide to share with my lab too - keen for any feedback on things I might have gotten wrong
An infographic titled 'How Journals Make a Killing' that explains the profit in academic publishing, the life cycle of a journal article, and the cost for tax payers
May 7, 2025 at 6:51 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Humiliated by my calculator app’s memory
A screenshot of calculations I’ve used my calculator for, including things like 90+11.1, 58+32 and 116/2
May 5, 2025 at 9:44 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
And a measles one ready-made by the CDC www.cdc.gov/measles/data...:
Figure of reported measles cases in the US from 1962-2023 showing how common measles was before vaccines (~500K cases per year) and how vaccine policy enabled elimination
March 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Lower ink version for printing 🍃
Graphs plotting the average price of a dozen large eggs in the US for the January 2024-February 2025 period showing an increase from around $3 (four year average of $2.62) to a current price of $5.90
March 13, 2025 at 9:14 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Here's a mock up of one if it can be helpful - happy to take requests to make more if people can point me towards the data.
Graph plotting the average price of a dozen large eggs in the US for the January 2024-February 2025 period showing an increase from around $3 (four year average of $2.62) to a current price of $5.90
March 13, 2025 at 6:14 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Homer Simpson with several rage-fuelled abstract sculptures he made
February 28, 2025 at 9:09 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
I present: Tiny dollhouse of rage 🏠
A photo of a tiny two-storey dollhouse (approx. 7x7x7 inches) filled with furniture and homewares
February 28, 2025 at 9:09 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Just used this awesome resource by @caroballing.bsky.social again for a new student. Thank you for your community service Caroline! 😊

osf.io/preprints/os...
A table mapping 'The Congruence of Dimensional Diagnostic Approaches to Personality: FFM, AMPD, ICD-11, HiTOP and RDoC'
February 24, 2025 at 12:00 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Thought my first foray into miniature model making would be a good ‘creative rest’ coping strategy. Instead it was very cathartic for white hot rage while I repeatedly glued my fingers to everything.
A picture of a tiny miniature model bed (approx 1.5x1.5 inches) with throw pillows and a blanket
February 6, 2025 at 10:42 AM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Had fun making a more colourful program this year - a tiny pocket of vibrancy in my day
The cover of a conference program for the HiTOP 2025 Annual Meeting with bright colours drawn from a 'DENVER' mural featured in the image
February 3, 2025 at 11:50 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Thanks buddy - I know you face the same stuff. It's particularly hard to explain away when this guy is posting the (almost exact) same work like it's his.

Where's Dr. G with his very confident miscalculated corrections?
A screenshot of a twitter interaction with a reply guy coming up with a miscalculation that he's very confident in and thinks I need to disprove - e.g., "That’s an extremely basic permutation and is quite right, prove it incorrect."
February 2, 2025 at 12:25 PM
miriforbes.bsky.social
Not the biggest problem we're facing right now, but wow it's annoying that when this guy shares my work everyone tells him how brilliant he is and when I share it I get random dudes swinging by to tell me I can't do maths
A screenshot of a tweet by 'Nicholas Fabiano, MD' with lots of engagement describing a statistic I calculated with my dad (that there are >60 million ways that symptoms can be combined for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder) posted together with a figure I made, unrelated to the statistic (symptom repetition in the DSM-5).
February 2, 2025 at 11:32 AM