155 Depersonalization Disorder (300.6)
This is a video of a woman who was diagnosed with depersonalization disorder. In the video she gives a good description of what it feels like when a person is experiencing an episode caused by depersonalization disorder.
DSM-IV-TR criteria
A. Persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of, one’s mental processes or body (e.g., feeling like one is in a dream).
B. During the depersonalization experience, reality testing remains intact.
C. The depersonalization causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
D. The depersonalization experience does not occur exclusively during the course of another mental disorder, such as Schizophrenia, Panic Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, or another Dissociative Disorder, and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., temporal lobe epilepsy)
Associated features
- Associated features may include anxiety or depression. Sometimes, individuals have a hard time with sense of time and may have somatic manifestations. Comorbidity can include Panic Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, Dysthymic Disorder, Acute Disorder, or Major Depressive disorders. Individuals with Depersonalization disorder may have personality disorders as well.
- Individuals with Depersonalization have difficulty describing their symptoms and may fear that these experiences signify that they are “crazy.” Derealization may also be present and is experienced as the sense that the external world is strange or unreal. The individual may perceive an uncanny alteration in the size or shape of objects, and people may seem unfamiliar or mechanical.
Child vs. adult presentation
The disorder is more likely to occur in late adolescence to adulthood.
Gender and cultural differences in presentation
- From various studies, equal numbers of men and women are diagnosed. Individuals from individualistic societies are more likely to suffer from the disorder (see Etiology).
- In clinical samples, this disorder is diagnosed at least twice as often in women than in men.
Epidemiology
- Although much of the general population experiences a depersonalization experience (whether caused by a traumatic experience or danger, or a drug induced experience), only about 2.4% of the population has been diagnosed with depersonalization disorder.
- A transient experience of depersonalization develops in nearly one-third of individuals exposed to life-threatening danger and in close to 40% of patients hospitalized for mental disorders.
Etiology
Similar to the other dissociative disorders, scientists link severe childhood abuse to depersonalization disorders. Brain imaging including pet scans show sensory cortex abnormalities. Positron emission tomography scans