LAUSR

We are honored to introduce this special issue, which is the second in our series of Special Issues on Diagnostic Alternatives for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. In this brief introduction, we provide an overview of this issue, which is dedicated to proposed alternatives to the current diagnostic paradigm. A general introduction to the special-issue series can be found in the first issue (Kamens, Robbins, & Flanagan, 2017). Diagnostic alternatives are frameworks, practices, or approaches that might serve as alternatives to the current diagnostic paradigm as represented by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and the mental and behavioral disorders section of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD; World Health Organization, 1992a, 1992b). Alternatives come in the form of new diagnostic models, enhancements to the current diagnostic system, and alternatives to the theory and practice of diagnosis itself. Some alternatives are forward-looking, focusing on both present models (e.g., the DSM and ICD) and future models (e.g., the evolving Research Domain Criteria project of the National Institute of Mental Health [2017] and the new Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology model [Kotov et al., 2017]).