ABSTRACT
This chapter looks the future and explains why it is that the current dominance of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is by no means guaranteed to continue. At present the DSM succeeds because it manages to be a good enough classification for multiple purposes. Crucially, at present, the DSM is employed by researchers, and the US medical insurance industry, and has also managed to maintain compatibility with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Use by researchers provides scientific credibility; entanglement with the mechanisms for insurance payment in the US ensures that the DSM sells enough copies to make money. At the same time, compatibility with the ICD makes the DSM system appear to be the only way of classifying mental disorders. In the future the author expect the DSM to be less important. The DSM will become just one amongst others, bringing hope that a multiplicity of classifications will help improve mental health research and care.
