Psychiatry at crossroad between crisis and new identity.

BACKGROUND The question of identity of psychiatry as a medical profession as well as of the future of psychiatry has been the subject of much controversial discussion. METHOD An overview of available literature on crisis and challenges in contemporary psychiatry as well as on future of psychiatry. RESULTS In this paper we present our transdisciplinary multiperspective view on psychiatry based on the seven perspective explanatory approaches, on the art and practice of the learning organization as well as on the method of multiple working hypotheses. CONCLUSION Conflict between our current knowledge and various concepts and schools in psychiatry will probably bring with itself a new scientific paradigm with new diagnostic phenotypes and refining the old ones. Psychiatry has the historical opportunity to shape the future of mental health care, medicine, and society.