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A Phenomenological Test of a Theory of Depersonalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

N. L. Gittleson*
Affiliation:
Middlewood Hospital, Sheffield, 6
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The view that depersonalization experiences can “be regarded as occupying a position somewhere between the delusional and the non-delusional” was first suggested by Ackner (1954) who gave as an example the depressive's experience of malaise. If this is accepted into the normal framework of experience it will be attributed to illness or fatigue. If it is accepted and organized into a delusional framework, the depressive delusion that the body is rotting away (for example) may be exhibited. If, however, the experience cannot be accepted into either a normal or a delusional framework it will remain peculiar, foreign, strange, and unreal and will appear as depersonalization. Ackner commented that if delusions should develop, experiences of change “will tend to be included” within them, and thus not appear as depersonalization. Discussing depressive depersonalization in particular, he considered that “with delusional development, the unreality feeling tends to recede”.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1967 

References

Ackner, B. (1954). “Depersonalization.” J. ment. Sci., 100, 838872.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gittleson, N. L. (1966). “The effect of obsessions on depressive psychosis.” Brit. J. Psychiat., 112, 253259.Google Scholar
Jaspers, K. (1946). General Psychopathology. 7th edition. Translated by Hoenig, J., and Hamilton, M. W. (1962). Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
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