Robert M. Gordon

Indepenent Practice

This study introduces the Psychodiagnostic Chart (PDC) and its later version, the PDC-2, into scientific evidence.The purpose of this work is to describe the utility of a new clinical tool for current and future mental health screening and treatment.The method of the present work is a descriptive qualitative based on previous research and prelimina...

In this study, we tested the clinical utility and sensitivity of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2's (Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2017), Mental Functioning scales as operationalized by the Psychodiagnostic Chart-2 (Gordon & Bornstein, 2018). To assess this, we compared the Mental Functioning ratings for Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Ze...

مقاييس مخططات التشخيص النفسي حقيبة متكاملة تغطي مدى العمر الإنساني ، وهي مقاييس جامعة تشتمل تساؤلات كمية وكيفية ، وتقيس قدرات عقلية وجوانب شخصية لذا فهي جامعة للتكوينيين الفرضيين الرئيسين في علم النفس ، والفريق المصري الذي قدم المقاييس الحالية وطبقها على حالات متنوعة يأمل أن تصبح المقاييس الخمسة المتضمنة ( مقياس مخطط تشخيص الرضع والأطفال ، مقياس مخ...

History informs us that the malignant mental illness of autocratic leaders causes the worst avoidable suffering. It is the duty of experts to educate and warn of such dangers. One objective way to do so is to consider a person's capacity for mature leadership by assessing: weighting evidence, insightfulness, communication skills, making rational...

Over these last 50 years, I have researched, assessed, and treated disturbances of personality and relationships. I will tell you what I have learned about the nature of healthy relationships and personal growth. This is not a pop-psych book offering easy answers to life's complex problems. It is how a science-based psychology can give you insights...

This study introduces the Psychodiagnostic Chart (PDC) and its later version, the PDC-2, into scientific evidence.The purpose of this work is to describe the utility of a new clinical tool for current and future mental health screening and treatment.The method of the present work is a descriptive qualitative based on previous research and prelimina...

In this program, the presenter will introduce an innovative method to integrate psychodynamic structural diagnosis with symptom-based psychiatric diagnosis. A particular strength of the Psychodiagnostic Chart (PDC-2) is its ability to capture variations in patient functioning within categories, providing a more nuanced understanding of the whole pe...

Many psychologists feel that we have a duty to warn about potentially dangerous leaders. As important as assessing political candidates is, it is not a good idea to give in-person assessments to political candidates. Candidates for office are often experts in selling a manufactured image. However, it is possible to evaluate political candidates' pe...

Objective. The present article aims to present the changes and re-modulation of the conceptual and psychometric evolution of the Psychodiagnostics Chart (PDC)and its latest version PDC-3 first developed by Gordon and Bornstein in 2012 (Ibrahimi & Gordon,2020; Gordon & Bornstein; 2012 )and later revised by the authors in the 2022 (PDC-3) as a us...

The aim of the current article is to explore the Emotional Intelligence (EI) as a coping mechanism and training competence in the management of SARS Covid-19 pandemic stress in Albanian students. The design of the current study is a quantitative and correlational methodology. We administered online the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Te...

Objective. Psychoanalysis has been found to be useful to help individuals to deeply understand themselves and others. It is both a science of study and a method of treatment. The present paper aims to present a tool for psychoanalitic research and treatment and expound on the conceptual and psychometric evolution of the Psychodiagnostics Chart (PDC...

The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 (PDM-2) was developed for a person-centered perspective to the conceptualization and diagnosis of psychological dysfunction not found in the ICD or DSM. The PDM-2 enables clinicians to describe overall level of personality organization (Healthy, Neurotic, Borderline or Psychotic), specific personality patterns...

The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2 for the Assessment of Malignant Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Sadistic Personality Syndromes: Implications for Criminology and Politics Slide presentation International Congress on Law and Mental Health, July, Lyon, France, p.163.

The objective of the current article is to explore the emotional intelligence (EI) as a coping mechanism and training competence in the management of SARS COVID-19 pandemic stress in Albanian students. Methods we administered online is the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso emotional intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and The Scale of Impact of Stressful (Albanian versi...

We conducted an international survey to better understand both the negative and positive reactions of distance treatment during the pandemic. We received 1,490 survey responses from practitioners from 56 regions and countries who remotely treated patients psychoanalytically during the beginning months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Eighty-nine percent o...

Introduction: Most psychotherapists had no choice during the COVID-19 pandemic but to offer teletherapy in order to provide needed treatment. Several psychoanalytic theorists wondered if the very concept of treatment would change without an embodied relationship in an office setting. Methods: To attempt to understand the current concept of effectiv...

We present three recent research projects from China on distance psychoanalytic training and treatment. The first study explored how the internet could influence the process of psychoanalysis in three ways. First, choosing to accept online psychoanalysis is itself meaningful to the patients. Second, the internet connection itself can also be an org...

Objective: The objective of the current article is to explore the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in the management of SARS Covid-19 pandemic stress in Albanian students. Method: We administered online the Mayor-Slavory model of EI and The Scale of Impact of Stressful Events-Albanian version. The sample of respondents was 300 students (N=300)...

Introduction- The China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) has been offering psychoanalytic psychotherapy training and treatment to Chinese mental health professionals entirely over the Internet since 2006. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, most practitioners worldwide had to turn to teletherapy. US psychoanalytic practitioners were more negat...

Background: The main objective of the present article is to propose of a new

Students and practitioners gravitate to various theoretical orientations (TO) as if they were competing independent brands of treatment. Gordon (2008) proposed that TO was not just a choice among different brands but represent styles of mind for understanding reality. These TO are not discrete epistemologies but can be organized as a continuum from...

I summarize several studies on the effectiveness of distance training and treatment¹¹ I will use the term “distance treatment,” but this is interchangeable with other terms as such as “Internet mediated therapy” “remote treatment,” telepsychotherapy,” “Video-conferencing mediated treatment.”View all notes with Chinese mental health professionals. W...

This study assessed the concurrent validity of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM-2, APO, 2017) personality syndromes (P Axis) formulation by factor analyzing the countertransference expectation ratings of 412 clinicians of the PDM-2 personality syndromes. This study compared the resulting factor structures of those ratings to some of the lea...

Psychological research has generally suffered from methodological fundamentalism, which is an overly strict interpretation of what is considered "scientific" and has created a psychology of triviality. Methodological fundamentalism often constricts the study of a complex dynamic psychology that encompasses both observed and unobserved reality with...

Background: There is little empirical research on patients at the severe level of personality organization who generally need more clarifications of roles, tasks, boundaries, and supportive interventions, and often create increased problems with countertransference. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between clinicians' r...

Refined and revised MMPO-2 Personality Disorder scales

We describe updated and revised MMPI-2 scales for personality disorder (PD) using Loevinger’s (1957) integrated construct validation (CV) approach to guide scale development. Dimensionalized PD “Spectra” scales were constructed out of the item pool of all previous MMPI-2 PD scales using content validity, item-analytic, and external criterion compar...

Telehealth care is currently practiced world-wide offering expert services to individuals who would otherwise have difficulties obtaining such services. This new technology however, demanded new legal and ethical considerations. Legally, there are issues of territoriality of practice, and ethically there are issues of privacy, competency and qual...

A review of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual-2; a review of the Psychodiagnostic Chart-2; Diagnosing and Treating Personality Syndromes

Background and Aim: We illustrate a prototypical case study of the intergenerational transmission of trauma in a Chinese family. We used semi-structured interviewing with a volunteer family. Results: Grandmother (75 years old) experienced the traumas of poverty, suicide of her mother when she was 4 years old, "So I seldom sense a mother's love. (Th...

There was a problem downloading Gordon, R.M. & Bornstein, R.F. (2017) so I uploaded another copy.

The objective of the present paper is to introduce and explain a novel method of understanding,guiding,treatment,teaching and researching of mental health through Psychodynamic Manual-2(PDM-2). First,we will give an overview of the PDM-2 basic structure,its functionality and utilization. Second,we will focus on the conjoint instruments of operation...

Power Point presentation of my PDM-2 workshop.

How effective is psychoanalytic/psychodynamic distance training over the Internet? To assess this, we surveyed graduates of the 2 year and 4 year programs of the China America Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA). The main results of the 90 graduates’ surveys showed that 77% of their work involves a psychoanalytic formulation of their cases as compared t...

Now we have the option of delivering psychoanalytic services online to those who otherwise would not have easy access to such services. This new channel of connection is suspect to some psychoanalysts who fear that the Internet filters out too much of the interpersonal quality of the therapeutic relationship, according to a study I did with with Ja...

What do typical practitioners think of a psychodynamic taxonomy? A sample of mental health practitioners from a wide range of educational backgrounds and theoretical orientations (N= 438) were asked to rate the utility of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual’s taxonomy with a recently seen patient. Our survey indicated that the percent rated as “hel...

The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM; Alliance of Psychoanalytic Organizations [APO], 2006) was developed to add a contrasting, person-centered perspective to the conceptualization and diagnosis of psychological dysfunction in traditional diagnostic systems (i.e., the International Classification of Diseases, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manu...

This chart compares the taxonomies of personality disorders and syndromes from ICD-10, DSM5 and PDM-2. The types of personalities across taxonomies have a great deal of commonality despite their differences in methodology and theoretical assumptions. The ICD-10 classification is a product of the World Health Organization and is based on an internat...

Countertransference (CT) awareness is widely considered valuable for differential diagnosis and the proactive management of ethical dilemmas. We predicted that the more practitioners' theoretical orientation (TO) emphasizes insight into the dynamics of subjective mental life, the better they will be at using their CT expectations in differential di...

The PDCv.8.1 digital form provides construct definition boxes, score totaling, dialog box, and allows the ratings to be exported to Excel for data collection and statistical analysis for research purposes. N.B. If the download does not work properly get a copy from: https://sites.google.com/site/psychodiagnosticchart/

In an earlier study, Gordon, Wang and Tung, (2015) surveyed 176 therapists, supervisors and teachers in the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) and found that the psychodynamic constructs hold up well when treating Chinese patients over video-conferencing (VCON). Over-all, expert raters felt that psychodynamic treatment over VCON was only...

How do experts compare teaching, supervision and treatment from a psychodynamic perceptive over the Internet with in-person work? Our methodology was based on the expert opinions of 176 teachers, supervisors and therapists in the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) who use video-conferencing (VCON) with Chinese students. The results from...

Various theoretical orientations may represent very different epistemological styles and degrees of insightfulness into subjective states. Gordon (2008) proposed an epistemological dimension from the additive-overt-concrete behavioral/ CBT theories to the dynamic-covert-abstract psychoanalytic theories which values subjectivity and insight, with fa...

IPA Panel 2015: Psychoanalysis’ Taxonomic Tool for the 21st Century: the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual -2 Robert F. Bornstein will discuss the goals for PDM-2, and the guiding principles that are being used by the PDM-2 Organizing Committee to ensure that the second edition of the manual is scientifically sound and clinically useful. Drawing upo...

In the social context, individuals and society are in a complex combination for they cannot exist without each-Other. The way these identities combine in a time and space with new dimensions, is the core question held in this paper. Surely individuals gains from society space and time and gives space and time to it, as well.These quantum interchang...

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between level of personality organization and type of personality disorder as assessed with the categories in the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM; PDM Task Force, 2006) and the emotional responses of treating clinicians. We asked 148 Italian clinicians to assess 1 of their adult patients in...

Summary : Introduction: In the social context, individuals and society are in a complex combination for they cannot exist apart one-another. The way these parallel identities combine in a time and space with brand new dimensions is the core question held in this paper. Surely individuals gains from society space and time and gives space and time to...

Introduction In the social context individuals and society are in a complex combination for they can not exist apart one-another. The way these paralellic identities combine in a time and space with brand new dimensions is the core question held in this paper. Surely individuals gains from society space and time and gives space and time to it, as w...

Abstract Various theoretical orientations may represent very different epistemological styles and degrees of insightfulness into subjective states. Gordon (2008) proposed an epistemological dimension from the additive-overt-concrete behavioral/ CBT theories to the dynamic-covert-abstract psychoanalytic theories which values subjectivity and insigh...

In this article, we discuss the development of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) and its upcoming revision, the PDM-2. We describe the processes by which the PDM-2 is being developed and highlight important differences across both editions. At the same time, we emphasize the value of assessing internalized experience and how that can be of...

This article reviews the development of the second edition of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, the PDM-2. We begin by placing the PDM in historical context, describing the structure and goals of the first edition of the manual, and reviewing some initial responses to the PDM within the professional community. We then outline 5 guiding principle...

Countertransference (CT) awareness is widely considered valuable for differential diagnosis and the proactive management of ethical dilemmas. We predicted that the more practitioners’ theoretical orientation (TO) emphasizes insight into the dynamics of subjective mental life, the better they will be at using their CT expectations in differential di...

Countertransference awareness is widely considered valuable for differential diagnosis and the proactive management of ethical dilemmas. We predicted that the more practitioners’ theoretical orientation (TO) emphasizes insight into the dynamics of subjective mental life, the better they will be at using their countertransference (CT) expectations i...

The Psychodiagnostic Chart (PDC) operationalizes the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) Adult section. The authors collected 104 PDC cases from 15 psychologists who are experts with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). They found very good construct validity when the PDC was compared to MMPI-2, the Karolinska Psychodynamic...

We are not likely to find a diagnostic system as “unethical,” per se, but rather find that it creates ethical concerns in its formulation and application. There is an increased risk of misuse and misunderstanding of the DSM-5 particularly when applied to forensic assessment because of documented problems with reliability and validity. For example,...

Psychoanalytic Diagnosis focuses only on adult personality, but goes beyond the few paragraphs of descriptions found in the PDM. It goes into great detail about personality organization, defensive functioning, and character styles and describes how they impact treatment. McWilliams does not cover the range of the PDM (which serves as a near-complet...

The purpose of this study was to assess the differences between the MMPI-2 and the MMPI-RC scales in sensitivity to levels of psychopathology. Ninety-eight clients from forensic, disability and psychotherapy evaluations were evaluated on the MMPI-2 and RC scales and rated for personality organization (neurotic, borderline or psychotic) on the Psych...

ABPP in Clinical Psychology and in Psychoanalysis in Psychology WHY A NEW DIAGNOSTIC MANUAL? The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM Task Force, 2006) is the first psychological diagnostic classification system that considers the whole person in various stages of development. A task force of five major psychoanalytic organizations and leading rese...

The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM Task Force, 2006) was introduced to 192 psychologists as part of either ethics/risk management or MMPI-2 workshops; 65 were psychodynamic, 76 CBT and 51 other non-psychodynamic psychologists (i.e. systems, humanistic/existential, eclectic with no primary preference, etc.). Over all the psychologists gave the...

A check-in at the beginning of supportive and symptom focused groups are common. However, it has not been part of psychoanalytic groups which center on the unconscious determinates of symptoms. The purpose of the two-minute check-in in a psychoanalytic group is to gain information on each member’s state of mind, help the group decide where it wants...

To test the involvement of primitive defenses in Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), we collected 158 MMPI-2s from court ordered custody evaluations from 7 forensic psychology practices; 76 were PAS cases and 82 were custody cases without PAS (controls). We used two MMPI-2 indexes to measure primitive defenses: L + K − F and (L + Pa + Sc) − (Hy + P...

Gordon’s (2001) study of the high reactivity of the MMPI/MMPI-2 to long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy did not include effect sizes and correlations. These are now included for use in meta-analyses. Fifty-five polysymptomatic outpatients mostly at the borderline level were tested at the beginning and end of treatment. After M = 38.8 months (SD =...

Introduction From over a span of 30 years, I studied and treated disturbances of personality and intimacy with the expert’s tools of: 1. Case study, 2. Empirical research, and 3. Theoretical formulation. I will tell you what I have learned about the nature of love, healthy and unhealthy intimacy and how to bring about personal growth. For this purp...

Moyer, Burkhardt, and Gordon found in 2002 that some individuals could fake PTSD on the MMPI-2. In light of these results, a follow-up study was conducted to assess whether attributes such as empathy, intelligence, subjectivity, or insightfulness influenced ability to fake a PTSD profile on the MMPI-2. 35 subjects from the previous study were divid...

The MMPI-2 Restructured Clinical scales rest on the common behavioral assumption that consistent items can be added to assess all psychopathologies. This may be the case for some unitary symptoms such as anxiety or anger, but not for complex diagnostic conditions such as Hysteria, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder....

What is love? No one theory can explain it. I offer a unified model in order to better integrate the contributions from such areas as evolutionary psychology, psychoanalysis and social psychology. I use a heuristic pyramid with five levels. Starting at the base, they are Species Traits, Individual Traits, Relational Internalizations, Beliefs and fi...

Gerd Fenchel's first publication about the psychology of human interaction was in 1951 (Fenchel, Monderer, & Hartley, 1951). And now, fifty-five years later, with his recent book, Psychoanalytic Reflections on Love and Sexuality , we have the benefit of Fenchel's years of teaching, treating and scholarship on sexuality, intimacy, gender, culture, s...

J. S. Wallerstein and J. M. Lewis (2004; see record 2004-17367-002) concluded from their correlational research of 45 divorced families that divorce causes lasting damage to children. The authors attribute the subsequent psychological problems in the children to the divorce itself as opposed to the psychopathology of the parents, the trauma of the...

The MMPI-2 is often used to assess posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in individuals who claim psychological injury, as a result of a motor vehicle accident. There is concern that attorneys can coach plaintiffs to fake PTSD. The purpose of this study was to determine whether prior symptom knowledge increased one’s ability to fake PTSD on the MMPI...

I include this piece to show two things. First, to show how I seek and weigh evidence. Secondly, to show how love relations can become hateful and destructive when there are lies, primitive defenses (denial, splitting, projection, etc.) and little insight. I often need to use psychological detective work to track down evidence in a child custody ev...

The MMPI-2 is often used to assess posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in individuals who claim psychological injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident. There is concern that attorneys can coach plaintiffs to fake PTSD. The purpose of this study was to determine whether prior symptom knowledge increased one's ability to fake PTSD on the MMPI-...

Child Custody Evaluations: Psychology or Detective Work? is a book that I wrote that was published by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute in 2002. This book is based on my presentation to the Pennsylvania Bar about the role of the psychologist as an investigator of specific allegations such as child sexual abuse and spousal abuse. Many psychologists avo...

Clinical psychology is in danger of becoming the science of brief treatments for specific symptoms, and disenfranchising much of the psychotherapy practiced by successful private practitioners. Most the research today is not applicable to patients with personality disorders who require years of deep treatment. Although most the advances in psychoth...

The MMPI/MMPI-2, the most used and validated test of psychopathology, reacts poorly to "Empirically Supported Treatments", which are usually less than 20 sessions. The MMPI/MMPI-2 was tested with large dose therapy (long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy) with 55 polysymptomatic outpatients. After M = 38.8 months (SD = 17.1) of treatment, scales F,...

In this chapter I will discuss: The mother-daughter bond, The Medea Complex ( The mother's revenge against her former husband by depriving him of his children), brain washing and the Parental Alienation Syndrome (The children's pathological unconscious wish to please the "loved" parent by rejecting the "hated" parent), the subsequent disturbed inti...