Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual

Background
The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) is a diagnostic handbook similar to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The PDM was published on May 28, 2006.

The information contained in the PDM was collected by a collaborative task force which includes members of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the International Psychoanalytical Association, the Division of Psychoanalysis (Division 39) of the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, and the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work.

Although it is based on current neuroscience and treatment outcome studies, many of the concepts in the PDM are adapted from the classical psychoanalytic tradition of psychotherapy. For example, the PDM indicates that the anxiety disorders may be traced to the "four basic danger situations" described by Sigmund Freud in 1926: the loss of a significant other; the loss of love; the loss of body integrity; and the loss of affirmation by one's own conscience (NY Times).