Treatment of Depersonalization Disorder.

Depersonalization Disorder is where a person "looks at themselves from the outside", and observes their own physical actions or mental processes as if they were an observer instead of themselves. This often brings a sense of unreality, and an alteration in the perception of the environment around them, as well as the person fearing they are not in full control of themselves.

Depersonalization can occur during a number of different times, and not be a disorder. In order to qualify as a disorder, it must be recurrent to the point that it interferes with daily functioning in at least one major area of life.

Cause

Depersonalization is the third most common psychologicical experience, after feelings of anxiety and feelings of depression, and often occurs after a person experiences life threatening danger, such as an accident, assault, or serious illness or injury. Depersonalization disorder has not been studied widely, and its cause and occurrence in the population are unknown.

Symptoms

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).

During the depersonalization experience, reality testing remains intact.

The depersonalization causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Treatment

Since dissociative disorders seem to be triggered as a response to trauma or abuse, treatment for individuals with such a disorder may stress psychotherapy, although a combination of psychopharmacological and psychosocial treatments is often used. Many of the symptoms of dissociative disorders occur with other disorders, such as anxiety and depression, and can be controlled by the same drugs used to treat those disorders. A person in treatment for a dissociative disorder might benefit from antidepressants or antianxiety medication.

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