Diagnostic Classification Systems Based on Psychoanalytical Principles.

The diagnostic classification systems in psychiatry practice which are used worldwide extensively, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) are far away from the psychoanalytical point of view. It is thought that this gap results in the difficulty to understand psychiatric patients in clinical practice for many years. It has also created an obstacle to scientific researches addressing the validity and reliability of the psychoanalytical principles. On the other hand, psychoanalysis has been much criticised for years due to the lack of empirical foundations. As a result of this paucity, psychiatry is led by the biomedical approach. Without enough grounds in evidence-based medicine, psychoanalytical principles could not become widespread in psychiatric practice. To survive criticism and strengthen its place in contemporary psychiatry, empirical research in psychoanalytical discipline has gained momentum in the last two decades. Development of objective psychodynamic diagnostic tools enabled the design of such studies. The aim of this review is to introduce such diagnostic tools, namely Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) and Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD), and to discuss the possible contributions they provide for psychoanalytical perspective to take its deserved place in the psychiatry discipline.