- Section 1 The Subject Matter of and Approach to Psychiatry
- 1.3 Psychiatry as a worldwide public health problem
- 1.4 The history of psychiatry as a medical specialty
- 1.5 Ethics and values
- 1.6 The psychiatrist as a manager
- 1.7 Descriptive phenomenology
- 1.8 Assessment
- 1.9 Diagnosis and classification
- 1.10 From science to practice
- Section 2 The Scientific Basis of Psychiatric Aetiology
- 2.3 The contribution of neurosciences
- 2.4 The contribution of genetics
- 2.5 The contribution of psychological science
- 2.6 The contribution of social sciences
- 2.7 The contribution of epidemiology to psychiatric aetiology
- Section 3 Psychodynamic Contributions to Psychiatry
- Section 4 Clinical Syndromes of Adult Psychiatry
- 4.4 Persistent delusional symptoms and disorders
- 4.5 Mood disorders
- 4.6 Stress-related and adjustment disorders
- 4.7 Anxiety disorders
- 4.7.1 Generalized anxiety disorders
- 4.7.2 Social anxiety disorder and specific phobias
- 4.7.3 Panic disorder and agoraphobia
- 4.8 Obsessive–compulsive disorder
- 4.9 Depersonalization disorder
- 4.10 Disorders of eating
- 4.11 Sexuality, gender identity, and their disorders
- 4.12 Personality disorders
- 4.13 Habit and impulse control disorder
- 4.14 Sleep–wake disorders
- 4.15 Suicide
- 4.16 Culture-related specific psychiatric syndromes
- Section 5 Psychiatry and Medicine
- Section 6 Treatment Methods in Psychiatry
- 6.2 Somatic treatments
- Section 7 Social Psychiatry and Service Provision
- Section 8 The Psychiatry of Old Age
- Section 9 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
(p. 774) Depersonalization disorder
- Chapter:
- (p. 774) Depersonalization disorder
- Author(s):
Nick Medford
, Mauricio Sierra
, and Anthony S. David
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780199696758.003.0101
Depersonalization, a term coined by Dugas in 1898, is defined in DSM-IV as ‘an alteration in the experience of self so that one feels detached from and as if one is an outside observer of one's outside mental processes or body’. Brief, self-limiting experiences of depersonalization commonly occur in healthy people in the context of fatigue, intense stress, or during/after intoxication with alcohol or illicit drugs. However, some people experience chronic depersonalization of a disturbing intensity, causing significant distress and impacting on quality-of-life and daily functioning. This may occur as a primary depersonalization disorder (DPD), or in the context of other psychiatric or neurological conditions. In this chapter, we consider the primary disorder, although some sections are also relevant to secondary depersonalization. The depersonalization experience is one of feeling strangely altered and unreal, in a way that sufferers often find very hard to convey. It is often accompanied by the related phenomenon of derealization, in which the person's surroundings are experienced as somehow remote and lacking immediacy and vibrancy, as if the world itself has become oddly unreal. Patients with persistent depersonalization and derealization often use the analogy of feeling as if they are on the set of a play or film, where nothing is real and they are acting out a role rather than living a real life.
Access to the complete content on Oxford Medicine Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
- Section 1 The Subject Matter of and Approach to Psychiatry
- 1.3 Psychiatry as a worldwide public health problem
- 1.4 The history of psychiatry as a medical specialty
- 1.5 Ethics and values
- 1.6 The psychiatrist as a manager
- 1.7 Descriptive phenomenology
- 1.8 Assessment
- 1.9 Diagnosis and classification
- 1.10 From science to practice
- Section 2 The Scientific Basis of Psychiatric Aetiology
- 2.3 The contribution of neurosciences
- 2.4 The contribution of genetics
- 2.5 The contribution of psychological science
- 2.6 The contribution of social sciences
- 2.7 The contribution of epidemiology to psychiatric aetiology
- Section 3 Psychodynamic Contributions to Psychiatry
- Section 4 Clinical Syndromes of Adult Psychiatry
- 4.4 Persistent delusional symptoms and disorders
- 4.5 Mood disorders
- 4.6 Stress-related and adjustment disorders
- 4.7 Anxiety disorders
- 4.7.1 Generalized anxiety disorders
- 4.7.2 Social anxiety disorder and specific phobias
- 4.7.3 Panic disorder and agoraphobia
- 4.8 Obsessive–compulsive disorder
- 4.9 Depersonalization disorder
- 4.10 Disorders of eating
- 4.11 Sexuality, gender identity, and their disorders
- 4.12 Personality disorders
- 4.13 Habit and impulse control disorder
- 4.14 Sleep–wake disorders
- 4.15 Suicide
- 4.16 Culture-related specific psychiatric syndromes
- Section 5 Psychiatry and Medicine
- Section 6 Treatment Methods in Psychiatry
- 6.2 Somatic treatments
- Section 7 Social Psychiatry and Service Provision
- Section 8 The Psychiatry of Old Age
- Section 9 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry