[Body image and mental structure--the ascertainment of body experience in psychodynamic diagnostics].

The present paper introduces a new method for diagnosing the body image and reference to the integrational level of personality structure. First the body image is defined using five criteria: consciousness, flexibility, intersubjectivity, representational links to thought contents, and level of structural integration of the personality. Using axis four of the Operationalised Psychodynamic Diagnostics (OPD) as a starting point, dimensions are defined and described that allow assessment of the body image according to structural dimensions of the personality. The structural diagnostics of the body image can serve as a basis for a new rating instrument of body image integration.