Using Spinoza to Address Experiences of Selfhood within Existential Anxiety and Self-Referential Processing in Depersonalization-Derealization
Jeremy Cooper preprint
Existential anxiety in depersonalization-derealization disorder appears both as a symptom to be reduced and as a window into self-referential processes. This argument combines Spinoza's concept of conatus—the striving to persist—with insights from lived experience to better understand how people distinguish themselves amid environmental demands. The proposed conceptualization of conatus aligns with current findings and may inform clinical recommendations and future research into the neurophenomenology of dissociative disorders.