Depersonalization

A feeling of loss of personal identity, and that one is strange or unreal, may occur in a variety of mental disorders. Organizing and arranging thoughts becomes difficult, the brain feels numb, and occasionally the sufferer feels giddy and fears collapsing in public. There may be a belief that part of one's self has disappeared, or that one has ceased to exist - ['délire de négation']

- or that one's body has swollen to an enormous extent - ['délire d'énormité']

. Depersonalization may be accompanied by [derealization]

, when the environment appears to have changed in such a way that reality, the whole world, has changed, with possible feelings of imminent catastrophe. It may be that everything appears flat and lacking in significance. It may also be accompanied by [dereism]

, when mental activity no longer takes the facts of reality into consideration, but deviates from laws of logic and experience. Impressions include the feeling of having no body, of being a ghost, of seeing someone else when one looks in a mirror, of having another's voice. The sufferer is a stranger to himself. There may be a residual sense of "I" as an outside observer; but there is no sense of "me" or of involvement. There is an overall sense of loneliness and isolation.

Depersonalization may be triggered by a number of circumstances, including sensory deprivation, extreme pain, hysteria, emotional distress, or under the effects of psychedelic drugs, as well as arising in schizophrenia and other mental disorders and nervous diseases. It may also occur in response to sudden disaster or threats to security, such as to someone reprieved at the last moment from the death sentence. Sufferers from allochiry (lack of perception of one half of the body) may also suffer from total or partial depersonalization. Depersonalization is a common feature of psychiatric cases, particularly obsessional disorders and in depressive states. The experience may be described as being cut off from the grace of God and, in combination with dissociation of affect, with loss of capacity to love their families, isolation and unworthiness.

All feelings of depersonalization are not necessarily negative. There may be a feeling of altered identity and unreality when falling in love or coming into large sums of money. The term might also be extended to cover the transcending of reality which occurs in religious rites, mystic rituals and the taking of drugs. Depersonalization also gives rise to insight - there is an awareness of personal identity and also of the unreal quality of the experience.