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Psychodynamic Foundations of Bioenergetic Analysis

Experiencing, Understanding and Healing the Body and the Mind
1.5 Bioenergetic, Psychiatric and Psychodynamic Diagnostics
Volume 2 Part 1: Psychodynamic Theory for Bioenergetic Practice Chapter 1.5

Bioenergetic, Psychiatric and Psychodynamic Diagnostics

Reinhard Weber-Steinbach

This essay presents the basics of medical-psychological diagnostics, from bioenergetic to psychiatric to psychodynamic diagnostics. It shows how the various diagnostic methods in their modern forms can enrich each other, and it looks for reasons why there are still major reservations on all sides when empirical values from the other areas of research are to be integrated.

Link to the original publication at Routledge

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  • A medical diagnosis is an assignment of medical findings to a disease pattern.
  • Psychiatric diagnosis is used to make psychiatric diagnoses according to existing classification systems such as ICD-10. A psychiatric diagnosis involves collecting, grouping, combining and weighting psychopathological abnormalities.
  • For most disorders according to the classical psychiatric classification systems, the diagnosis does not provide any information about the development of the diagnosed disorder, so that its informative value with regard to specific treatment options is limited.
  • In classical Bioenergetic Analysis, the five character structures are taught from a developmental-psychological perspective, in the sense of denied rights. Bioenergetic body- and character-diagnostics then form the basis for all analytical and body-therapeutic interventions by the therapist.
  • In today’s society, character structures no longer develop as typically as they used to. In addition, bioenergetic diagnostics is made more difficult by the fact that character structures can be compensated, e.g., rigidly or narcissistically.
  • Psychodynamic diagnostics attempts to identify, name and operationalize unconscious mental processes. As such processes are difficult to categorize, dimensional development models are widely used (maturation stages).
  • Mentzos’ three-dimensional psychodynamic model places the unconscious inner conflict, i.e., the inner friction of intrapsychic polar opposites, at the center of therapeutic interest.
  • The highly differentiated OPD manual is a successful attempt to make the three central psychodynamic topics of conflict, structure and relationship measurable.

Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Methodik und Dokumentation in der Psychiatrie (2018). Das AMDP-System (10. Auflage) [The AMDP System]. Hogrefe.

Arbeitskreis OPD (2006). Operationalisierte Psychodynamische Diagnostik OPD-2 [Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis OPD-2]. Bern: Hans Huber.

Arbeitskreis OPD (2023). Operationalisierte Psychodynamische Diagnostik OPD-3 [Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis OPD-3]. Hogrefe.

Arbeitskreis OPD-KJ (2016). Operationalisierte Psychodynamische Diagnostik im Kindes- und Jugendalter (2. Auflage) [Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis in Childhood and Adolescence]. Hogrefe.

Boessmann, U. (2010). Struktur und Psychodynamik [Structure and Psychodynamics]. Deutscher Psychologen Verlag.

Falkai, P. & Wittchen, H.-U. (2015). Diagnostische Kriterien DSM-5 [Diagnostic Criteria DSM-5]. Hogrefe.

Fehr, T. (2000). Bioenergetische Charakterkonzepte aus persönlichkeitspsychologischer Sicht [Bioenergetic Character Concepts from a Personality-Psychological Perspective]. Report Psychologie, 5–6.

Hladky, F. (1995). The importance of finding the theme when starting to work with a client. Forum der Bioenergetischen Analyse, 1.

Krause, R. (2012). Allgemeine psychodynamische Behandlungs- und Krankheitslehre (2. Auflage) [General Psychodynamic Treatment and Disease Theory]. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

Mentzos, S. (2013). Lehrbuch der Psychodynamik (6. Auflage) [Textbook of Psychodynamics]. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Moll, A. (2018). Wozu so eine komplizierte Theorie, wenn wir doch direkt mit dem Körper arbeiten können? [Why Such a Complicated Theory When We Can Work Directly with the Body?]. In J. Tasche & R. Weber-Steinbach (Eds.), Bioenergetik als mentalisierende Körperpsychotherapie [Bioenergetics as Mentalizing Body-Psychotherapy] (p. 35–87). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Remschmidt, H., Schmidt, M. & Poustka, F. (2002). Multiaxiales Klassifikationsschema für psychische Störungen des Kinder- und Jugendalters nach ICD-10 der WHO (4. Auflage) [Multiaxial Classification of Mental Disorders of Childhood and Adolescence according to WHO ICD-10]. Bern: Hans Huber.

Rudolf, G. (2006). Strukturbezogene Psychotherapie (2. Auflage) [Structure-Related Psychotherapy ]. Stuttgart: Schattauer.

Schore, A.N. (2009). Affektregulation und die Reorganisation des Selbst (2. Auflage) [Original title: Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self]. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Storck, T. (2021). Abwehr und Widerstand [Defense and Resistance]. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

Reinhard Weber-Steinbach
Reinhard Weber-Steinbach

Reinhard Weber-Steinbach, Dr. med., medical studies at the FU Berlin, ten years of further training in radiology, pediatrics, surgery, internal...

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