The second edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2)

Abstract

This chapter aims to introduce readers to the second edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2) and to present it in light of the perspective on psychodynamic diagnosis. The PDM is a diagnostic manual that emphasises who a person is, rather than the disorder she/he has. The descriptive psychiatric model makes nosology more research-friendly, but it may also lead clinicians to underestimate the value of idiographic clinical information. The PDM brings a valuable perspective to this nosographic panorama in its attempts to broaden the horizon and facilitate clinical-diagnostic dialogue in the scientific community. The PDM-2 proposes a synergistic description of the three main lines around which diagnosis moves: personality patterns, mental functioning, and the descriptive and subjective experience of symptoms. It draws on S. Freud’s original conception of the continuity of mental functioning, with clinical nuances described to greater or lesser degree within the spectrum of normal to abnormal, healthy/adaptive to ill/maladaptive, and borderline to psychotic levels of neurotic constellations.