Sunday, October 24, 2010

Depersonalization

Sierra (2009) points out that the four differentiated factors are found in the symptoms of depersonalization.
[Sierra, M. (2009). Depersonalization: A New Look at a Neglected Syndrome. Cambridge University Press.]

1. Anomalous body experience; Abnormalities in the way they experience their bodies such as lack of body ownership feelings, feelings of loss of agency, disembodiment feelings, somatosensory distortions, heightend self-observation.

2. Emotional numbing; Attenuated emotional experience, such as loss of affection, pleasure, fear, or disgust. Inability to feel emotions.

3. Anomalies in subjective recall; Complaints that memories of personal events have lost personal meaning. Patients feel as if what they remember did not really happened to them.

4. Alienation from surroundings; The symptom known as derealization. Feelings of being cut off from the world around, and of things around seeming unreal.

The 'anomalous body experience' in depersonalization includes the disembodiment feelings. It seems to be the most extreme case of our bodily awareness.