Speaking of Depersonalization: Reality Testing, Language, and Lived Experience
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology October 1, 2025 Patrick J. Casey
The thesis of this essay is that the desire to categorize psychiatric patients in a binary way—as either recognizing that their bizarre experiences are subjective and unreal or wrongly believing them to be objective and real—has resulted in misleading ways of talking about depersonalization/derealization disorder (DPDR). This has, in turn, obscured how the disorder presents in severe and...