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

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.
Competing Interests: Benjamin B. Lahey and Henning Tiemeier both serve on the JCPP Advances Editorial Advisory Board. Robert F. Krueger declares that they have no competing or potential conflicts of interest.
(© 2022 The Authors. JCPP Advances published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)