ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on additional factors are pivotal in assessing suitability for psychodynamic psychotherapy. Psychodynamic assessment is an attempt to collate historical data and to reach a diagnostic formulation with the patient in order to understand the meaning of the presenting complaints. As psychodynamic assessment involves also the understanding of the patient’s relationships, the assessor, by virtue of his/her training and experience should focus on aspects of these relationships, which may be unconsciously repeated in the assessment process. The chapter examines in order to assess the suitability of a patient for psychodynamic psychotherapy a number of concepts that together constitute the structure of a psychodynamic assessment. The essence of psychodynamic assessment for suitability is to ascertain the patient’s ability to understand the meaning of his/her presenting complaints. Psychological mindedness, although clouded by controversies, remains a useful and important area to explore in a psychodynamic assessment.
