Welfare-type societies tend to encourage construction of care pathways to counter fragmentation of health care services caused by the well-documented trends of increased professionalization, decentralization, and specialization. Still, care pathways for mental health problems remain poorly conceptualized, academically as well as in practice. Implementation is fraught with difficulties, and the implied collaborative behavior between professional stakeholders often fails to develop to the detriment of patients. This paper aims to increase professional ability to integrate and develop care pathways for neurodevelopmental disorders (ND) in children and adolescents. Based on multilevel empirical data, it presents a new theory about ND care pathways as commons, holding a complex common pool resource (CPR) attractive to professionals. The paper a) sets ND care pathways on a more solid theoretical footing, b) points to the PROSOCIAL framework as promising alternative for ND care pathway development work, and c) provides a rationale for further CBS-relevant research on professional behavior in care pathways för mental health based on Ostromian commons theory, relational frame theory, and the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD-) framework.