title: A psychoanalytic clinician looks at diagnostic labels and diagnostic classification systems.
abstract: As psychoanalytic clinicians, we do not believe that assessment should be diagnosis based. However, we are supportive of attempts to create a diagnostic classification system that reflects something essential about human nature and also serves clinical purposes. In this article, we present a psychoanalytic diagnostic scheme that combines a more descriptive characterological diagnosis with a more structural level of personality organization diagnosis. The scheme is applied to a clinical case and then we discuss it in terms of the functions such a scheme provides for assessment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Lerner
authors.forename: Howard D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Lerner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D013803:Thematic Apperception Test