Seven reasons why binary diagnostic categories should be replaced with empirically sounder and less stigmatizing dimensions

Abstract

Background: An ongoing positive revolution advocates a new approach to the individual differences in human emotions, cognitions, and behavior that cause distress and impair functioning. This revolution endorses the long-proposed, but still unrealized rejection of the medical model, which attributes psychological problems to a sick brain or mind. In addition, it advocates replacing the binary diagnoses used in ICD and DSM, which assume a clear discontinuity between “normal” and “abnormal” functioning, with continuous dimensions of psychological problems. Method: Selective literature review. Results and Discussion: Seven strong reasons are provided for adopting a dimensional approach.