To date, theories of psychopathology have been instantiated verbally. Unfortuantely, verbal theories are underspecified due to the inherent imprecision of natural language. As an example, consider the verbal theory “hopelessness leads to suicidal thoughts”. While this is indeed a component of many existing suicide theories – and a statement that many psychopathology researchers (myself included) would agree with – the verbal nature of this theory leaves many details unspecified. For instance, is the theorized relationship between hopelessness and suicidal thoughts within-person, between-person, or both?