The Depersonalization Syndrome

A case series of 223 patients with depersonalization-derealization syndrome

BACKGROUND Depersonalization-derealization syndrome (DDS) is an underdiagnosed and underresearched clinical phenomenon. In Germany, its administrative prevalence is far below the threshold for orphan diseases, although according to epidemiological surveys the diagnosis should be comparable frequent as anorexia nervosa for instance. Against this background, we carried out a large comprehensive s...

Depersonalization: An exploratory factor analysis of the Italian version of the Cambridge Depersonalization Scale.

BACKGROUND "Depersonalization" (DP) is a common symptom in the general population and psychiatric patients (Michal et al., 2011 [1]). DP is characterized by an alteration in the experience of the self, so that one feels detached from his or her own mental processes or body (or from the world), feeling as being an outside observer of his or her own self, and loosing the experience of unity and i...

Migraine and depersonalization disorder.

In a recent study of 204 patients with depersonaliza-tion disorder attending a specialist psychiatric clinic, Baker et al. (1) reported that 31% had a self-reported history of migraine and, of these, one third believed that their headaches and depersonalization were connected. Depersonalization disorder is classified as a dissociative disorder in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnosti...

Depersonalization: a self-relations perspective.

Autonomic response in depersonalization disorder.

BACKGROUND Emotional-processing inhibition has been suggested as a mechanism underlying some of the clinical features of depersonalization and/or derealization. In this study, we tested the prediction that autonomic response to emotional stimuli would be reduced in patients with depersonalization disorder. METHODS The skin conductance responses of 15 patients with chronic depersonalization di...