Background: Which psychodiagnostic criteria indicate artificial donation motives at work in living organ donation?
Methodology: Using a casuistic we investigated self-harmful behaviour with regard to peculiarities in transference as well as countertransference.
Results: Diagnostically of great important is the discrepancy between the difficulty of the examiner to understand the donation request in its psychosocial context and the vehemence with which the donor insists on going through with the transplantation. At the same time, one may notice a lack of reflective ability impeding an ambivalent attitude toward the donation. The doctor/patient relationship is restricted by aggressive affects, and the body of the donor is reduced to an object with exchangeable organs.
Discussion: When evaluating donor-recipient pairs who belong into the group of pairs with particular emotional investment according to Article 8.1 of the German Organ Transplantation Law, one should consider the possibility of autoaggressive motives as a background to a living organ donation. Also, when discussing the extension of anonymous and predominantly altruistically motivated living organ donation one should consider the exclusion of autoaggressive motives.