The Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM) in the USA and in Europe: Between Commercial Success and Influence on professionals and researchers.

Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual is the nick-name of an Algerian Facebooker (the short version is Psychodynamic) who posted the cover of the original edition of the PDM as a portrait, has six friends, loves the Real Madrid among the football clubs, and is formally engaged. At the same time, the PDM is the most inter-esting diagnostic proposal from the fields of psy-chology and psychoanalysis. It is also a manual with good diffusion if, as Paul Stepansky stated, „to achieve commercial success of this order, the “psychoanalytic” appellation must be diluted to “psychodynamic”, and the psychodynamic “terms” and “concepts” offered in a user-friendly format intended to broaden rather than supplant other diagnostic frameworks. This is the very formula that has made the recently self-published Psycho-dynamic Diagnostic Manual, collectively authored by an “Alliance of Psychoanalytic Organizations,” a stunning success, with sales, as of March, 2008, of over 20,000 copies‟ (Stepansky, 2009, p. 66).The aim of this short paper is to illustrate the PDM‟s fortune in North America and Europe. In looking toward a second edition of the PDM, we believe it appropriate to make some observations about the penetration and diffusion of the PDM in different professional and cultural contexts.