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ABSTRACT
This paper proposes a qualitative study exploring anomalous self and world-experiences in individuals with high levels of depersonalization experiences. Depersonalization (DP) is a condition characterized by distressing feelings of being a detached, neutral and disembodied onlooker of one’s mental and bodily processes. Our findings indicate the presence of a wide range of anomalous experiences traditionally understood to be core features of DP, such as disembodiment and disrupted self-awareness. However, our results also indicate experiential features that are less highlighted in previous work, such as faster time perception and blurriness of the self/other boundaries which may play a key role in altering one’s sense of self and sense of presence in the world. Our qualitative study provides an in-depth examination of self-reported disturbances of one’s relatedness to one’s self and the world, thereby shedding further light on the nature of altered subjective experiences in DP. In doing so, this paper draws attention to key aspects yet overlooked that may prove valuable for shedding further light into the phenomenon of depersonalization. We conclude by highlighting limitations of this study and a number of open questions that further work needs to address in the future.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. The interviews have been refined through clinical trials and with input from “experts by experience” (persons with schizophrenia and other psychoses) and clinicians familiar with phenomenological approaches to schizophrenia.
2. Validity and reliability trials are currently underway. The EAWE-SR may be accessed by contacting one of its authors (**Author). The items on the EAWE-SR are identical to those on the EAWE (Sass et al., Citation2017), though with different wording and response options.
3. For example, representationalists argue that while we typically have access only the representation’s intentional content (something in the world which it’s about) without noticing its non-intentional carrier properties (Harman, Citation1990; Moore, Citation1903; Tye, Citation1999), the process itself of constructing inner representations can become available to our introspective attention. Whenever we consciously direct our attention introspectively inwards, so to speak, the transparent processing of mental representations (typically taken for granted and hence “invisible”) becomes “opaque”, that is, “visible” and available to our attention (cf. the window metaphor described above).
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Notes on contributors
Anna Ciaunica
Dr. Anna Ciaunica is Principal Investigator at the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon, Portugal, and Research Associate at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, the UK. She worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Porto, Portugal and she was Research Associate at the Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London. Before that she was postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Dr Ciaunica’s work focuses on self-consciousness in humans and artificial agents. She is currently Leading Investigator of three interdisciplinary projects looking at the relationship between self-consciousness, embodiment and social interactions in humans and artificial agents. She is also the main coordinator of the Network for Embodied Consciousness, Technology and the Arts (NECTArts) – a collaborative platform bringing together artists, researchers, stakeholders, policy makers and people with lived experiences. NECTArts aims at fostering creative approaches to timely issues such as self-awareness and (dis)embodiment in our hyper-digitalized world.
Dr Harry Farmer is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Human Sciences at the University of Greenwich. Harry obtained a BSc Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Bristol and then an MSc in Psychological Research from the University of Oxford before completing his PhD in Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2014. He worked as a Research Associate in Social Neuroscience at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience between 2014 and 2018 and as a Research Associate in Virtual Reality at the University of Bath between 2017 and 2020. He joined the University of Greenwich in 2020. Harry's research interests centre on self-representation and social cognition. He uses a variety of methodologies including psychophysics, neuroimaging, physiological recordings and virtual reality.
Elizabeth Pienkos
Dr. Liz Pienkos is a licensed clinical psychologist and an assistant professor of psychology at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. She is the co-first-author (with Dr. Louis Sass) of the Examination of Anomalous World Experience. Her research focuses on the phenomenology of schizophrenia, using qualitative methods to explore the mechanisms and features of this and other psychiatric disorders.
Estelle Nakul
Dr. Estelle Nakul is a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neuroscience, formerly working at the CNRS and Aix-Marseille University, in France, now at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland. She investigates the multisensory and cerebral mechanisms of bodily self-consciousness, with a focus on the contributions of the vestibular system.
Luis Madeira
Prof Luís Madeira develops his career in four synchronous strands. Psychiatrist, graduated in Medicine from the University of Lisbon in 2008, vice-president of Portuguese Society of Psychiatry, works at the North Lisbon Hospital Centre, Lusíadas Hospital and CUF Descobertas Hospital. He holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Central Lancashire and a PhD in Medicine - in the field of Philosophy of Psychiatry. He is Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Deontology and of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon. He is also a Psychotherapist with the Portuguese Society for Client-Centred Psychotherapy and Person-Centred Approach.
Harry Farmer
Dr Harry Farmer is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Human Sciences at the University of Greenwich. Harry obtained a BSc Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Bristol and then an MSc in Psychological Research from the University of Oxford before completing his PhD in Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2014. He worked as a Research Associate in Social Neuroscience at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience between 2014 and 2018 and as a Research Associate in Virtual Reality at the University of Bath between 2017 and 2020. He joined the University of Greenwich in 2020. Harry's research interests centre on self-representation and social cognition. He uses a variety of methodologies including psychophysics, neuroimaging, physiological recordings and virtual reality.