Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization and the Loss of the Self, Second Edition

Feeling Unreal presents a comprehensive and contemporary overview of depersonalization/derealization disorder. The book examines in depth, and through many personal vignettes, the many shapes and forms that the dissociative state of mind known as depersonalization takes, its conceptualization over the past two centuries of psychiatric study, its detection, and its measurement. The diagnosis and differential diagnosis of the disorder are explicated and brought to life with clinical vignettes. The book covers with similar attention and details both psychological and biological perspectives on understanding the disorder. Treatment chapters discuss medications and transcranial magnetic stimulation; psychoeducation; and cognitive-behavioral, acceptance, mindfulness, and psychodynamic approaches to psychotherapy. Illuminating literary and philosophical reflections on the condition enrich the reading. Contemporary societal factors such as chronic internet use and virtual reality and their impact on detachment and depersonalization are explored.