  Although the spectra of heavy quarkonium systems have been successfully
explained by certain QCD motivated potential models, their strong decays are
still an open problem. We perform a microscopic calculation of vector
charmonium strong decays into open-charm mesons where the $q\bar{q}$ pairs are
created from the same interquark interactions acting in the quark model that
has been used to describe its spectrum, and also its leptonic and radiative
decays. We compare the numerical results with those predicted by the
$^{3}P_{0}$ decay model and with the available experimental data, and discuss
the possible influence on the strong widths of the different terms of the
potential. A comparison with other predictions from similar microscopic decay
models is also included.
