Book excerpt: Practical Alternatives to the Psychiatric Model of Mental Illness is the fifth Volume of the Ethics International Press Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry Series. Understanding the current systems of psychology and psychiatry is profoundly important. So is exploring alternatives. The Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry Series presents solicited chapters from international experts on a wide variety of underexplored subjects. This is a series for mental health researchers, teachers, and practitioners, for parents and interested lay readers, and for anyone trying to make sense of anxiety, depression, and other emotional difficulties. Practical Alternatives provides practical and implementable alternatives to psychiatric diagnosing. These discussions will be set against the unique backdrop that is managed care, and the contemporary system of healthcare in the United States. It likewise looks at worldwide practices that have arisen in different cultures and as a result of various alternative frameworks. The aim of this book is to provide people, including medical and psychiatric professionals researchers and students, with practical and varied clinical approaches they can utilize, that sidestep the need to rely on psychiatric diagnoses.