| Rivista | La Rivista di Psicoanalisi |
| Fascicolo | The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual 2025/19 |
| Titolo | The “Adolescence” section of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-3): From a symptom-based to a developmentally informed, person-centred approach in the treatment of depressive disorders |
| Autore | Annalisa Tanzilli |
| Editore | Raffaello Cortina Editore |
| Formato |
 Articolo |
Pdf
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| Pagine | |
| Lingua | inglese |
| Online da | 10-2026 |
While the most widely used international nosographic systems, the DSM and ICD, are based on a descriptive and atheoretical approach to psychopathology that is relatively insensitive to the specific features of different life stages, the new edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-3) promotes a person-centered, multidimensional, and developmentally informed model of diagnosis, aimed at integrating a nomothetic perspective with an idiographic understanding of the patient’s psychological functioning. In this contribution, the author presents the new “Adolescence” section of the PDM-3, with a particular focus on mood disorders. Through the discussion of a clinical case, the paper highlights the importance of a psychodynamic framework for understanding depressive disorders within the context of adolescents’ mental functioning and emerging personality profiles, which provides an essential foundation for planning patient-tailored and effective treatments.
Key Words: Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, adolescence, mental functioning, emerging personality, countertransference, depressive disorders.
