The contribution of Sidney Blatt's two-polarities model to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual

Submitted: October 4, 2016
Accepted: February 1, 2017
Published: April 13, 2017
Abstract Views: 3283
PDF: 1266
HTML: 951
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

This article reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions of Blatt's two-polarities model of personality development and psychopathology to the second edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2). First, we briefly provide an overview of the manual's main features and describe the guiding principles of the revision process. We then discuss in more detail how Blatt's model, which is focused on the dialectic interaction between anaclitic-introjective and relatedness vs self-definition dimensions in both normal and disrupted personality development, increases the PDM-2's theoretical and empirical comprehensiveness and clinical utility, especially concerning the classification and assessment of personality and overall mental functioning in adult populations. Finally, we address the implications for the therapeutic process, showing how anaclitic and introjective patients may be differentially responsive to different psychodynamic techniques (e.g., supportive or expressive interventions). Taken together, these considerations demonstrate the importance of a more theory-driven and empirically informed diagnostic system that embraces, in accordance with Sidney Blatt's empirically supported and psychoanalytically-oriented ideas, the complexities of human experience (both normal and pathological) and captures the subjective and underlying dynamics of psychological symptoms and syndromes.

Dimensions

Altmetric

PlumX Metrics

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations

How to Cite

Lingiardi, V., McWilliams, N., & Muzi, L. (2017). The contribution of Sidney Blatt’s two-polarities model to the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2017.242

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.