The Psychodynamic Framework
Psychodynamic diagnosis goes beyond a DSM symptom checklist. It aims to understand the whole person — unconscious process, personality structure, defense, and relational pattern — not to attach a label. Diagnosis, in this sense, guides treatment, understanding, and prediction of how therapy is likely to unfold, rather than sorting people into boxes.
The Core Design Principle
Explore → Compare → Reason → Formulate
Not: Enter symptoms → Get diagnosis. This app deliberately never asks you to type in symptoms and receive a label. Formulation is something you build, dimension by dimension, always holding open the question of what else could explain what you're seeing.
The Main Framework
From the Person to a Formulation
Every node below is a doorway into the relevant part of the guide.
THE PERSON
Identity
Reality Testing
Affect
Relationships
Personality Organization
Personality Style
Differential
Formulation
Level-by-Level
Educational Architecture
- Level 1
- Psychodynamic thinking — this page.
- Level 2
- Personality organization — the structural axis (neurotic / borderline / psychotic).
- Level 3
- Defenses, affect, and identity.
- Level 4
- Personality styles — the content axis, independent of structure.
- Level 5
- Differential diagnosis — what else could this be?
- Level 6
- Clinical cases — practicing the whole sequence on fictional vignettes.
- Level 7
- Formulation — integrating all of the above into a working understanding of a person, practiced within each case's reveal.