Features of depersonalization: An examination and expansion of the cognitive-behavioral model.

Abstract

derealization disorder, and the experience of depersonalization more broadly, is understudied and poorly understood. This study aimed to contribute to the empirical knowledge of depersonalization by evaluating the relationships between depersonalization symptoms and hypothesized vulnerability factors for and/or correlates of depersonalization based on prior theoretical and empirical literature. A general population sample of adults residing in the United States (N = 277) were recruited via Qualtrics and completed self-report questionnaires measuring depersonalization symptoms, general distress, private self-consciousness, anxiety sensitivity, lack of cognitive confidence, beliefs about the need to control thoughts, perseverative negative thinking, frequency and suppression of positive and negative emotion, alexithymia, overcontrolled personality, unconsolidated identity, and lack of identity, in randomized order. The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that depersonalization symptoms were significantly associated with greater levels of private self-consciousness, anxiety sensitivity, need to control thoughts, lack of cognitive confidence, perseverative thinking, frequency of negative emotion, frequency of positive emotion, suppression of positive emotion, alexithymia, and lack of identity, controlling for general distress. When also controlling for shared variance between the clinical variables, depersonalization symptoms remained significantly associated with greater lack of identity and frequency of negative emotion. The findings provide preliminary support for aspects of the cognitivebehavioral model of depersonalization and point to additional vulnerability factors and/or clinical correlates that may add to our understanding of depersonalization.

The Manipulation of Top-down Interpretation as One’s Symptomatic Body Reduces the Sense of Body Ownership

“…The negative relationship between the degree of depersonalization tendency and the degree of FBI in the neutral self-association condition observed in this study (Figure 5A) suggested that, in individuals with a high depersonalization tendency, neutral selfassociation instruction may have diverted attention to thought, which attenuated attention to visualtactile stimuli and inhibited FBI. Previous studies reported that depersonalized individuals exhibit tendencies to ruminate (Quigley et al, 2022), and that attention to thoughts may attenuate attention to perception, resulting in the generation of a sense of depersonalization, such as separation between the physical and the conscious self (Ciaunica et al, 2022). The possibility that attention to thoughts inhibits the creation of FBI also applies to the negative self-association condition.…”