Depersonalization Disorder (DPD)

915 Words2 Pages

Everyone feels “detached” in certain times of their lives. It could be after a traumatic event, significant occurrence, or even from emotions. People can relate to not feeling like they belonged, but in a sense of not belonging to society or a community. Others aren’t as fortunate and feel like they don’t belong to their own selves, their own bodies and minds. There is a disorder like this that many people have called Depersonalization disorder, or DPD. It has many symptoms, but when diagnosed, can be treated with different types of medications and therapies.

Depersonalization is a state in which a person experiences either his feelings, thoughts, memories, or bodily sensations as not belonging to himself. DPD is experienced in many syndromes such as depression, hypomania, phobic anxiety, OCD, borderline disorders, or schizophrenia (Trueman 1). It may also be linked to emotional or physical abuse in childhood. Depersonalization may affect one to two percent of the general population and eighty percent of psychiatric patients (Brown 1).

There are many symptoms of depersonalization that patients with this disorder have to deal with. J.C. Dixon studied the symptoms of DPD and found many recurring ones that people explained they had. Examples of this were: other people seemed changed or unfamiliar, things a person was used to seemed strange, body seemed detached, no self- awareness, and no difference between self and not-self (Trueman 2). These are not the only symptoms, another one is a type of obsession, like OCD. A patient may resort to obsessing over their symptoms. They may keep looking at their hands to decide if they look any more or less real than an hour ago, or may repeatedly check hundre...

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...he right diagnosis and treatment, they can help diminish the disorder and get their lives back.

Works Cited

Aliyev, N. A.Aliyev, Z. N. "Lamotrigine Outperforms Placebo In Study Of Difficult-To-Treat Depersonalization." Brown University Psychopharmacology Update 22.4 (2011): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

CBT, combination drug therapy showing promise for depersonalization disorder. Brown University Psychopharmacology Update [serial on the Internet]. (2005, May), [cited February 12, 2014]; 16(5): 1. Available from: MasterFILE Premier.

Simeon, Daphne, and Jeffrey Abugel. Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.

Trueman, David. "Depersonalization In Nonclinical Population." Journal Of Psychology 116.1 (1984): 107. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

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