Psychodiagnostische Evaluation

Davanloo has discovered and operationalized a means of direct assessment of character structure, including both discharge pathways of unconscious anxiety and specific manifestations of defenses. This psychodiagnostic process provides a roadmap to the unconscious buried feelings which generate the anxiety and defenses. This roadmap tells the therapist how much of which interventions are required to bring sufficient structural changes in unconscious anxiety and defenses to enable smooth, direct access to the unconscious. In following the map, changes in character structure begin to take place and are thereafter cemented by repeated unlocking of the unconscious and working through the underlying feelings. In this article, this process of psychodiagnostic evaluation, and the graded format of bringing structural changes will be overviewed and illustrated by vignettes from a course of treatment.