Psychopathology
June 18, 2026
Julia G. Lebovitz, Sohee Park
Introduction: Alterations in emotional experiences have been demonstrated in depersonalization-derealization disorder (DPD), typically highlighting a blunting of emotions and decreased ability to recognize and name emotions (i.e., alexithymia). However, less research has focused on how individuals with depersonalization experiences embody emotion states. Therefore, the present study...
Schizophrenia Bulletin
April 10, 2026
Cherise Rosen, Liping Tong, Julia G. Lebovitz et al.
Depersonalization (DP) and derealization (DR) are phenomena involving alterations in sense of self and lifeworld. These phenomena often co-occur in psychosis, suggesting dimensional psychopathology and complex phenomenological alterations in consciousness, embodiment, and meaning-making. The primary aim of this study was to examine phenomenological associations, dynamics, and diagnostic...
Psychopathology
2026
Tatiana Baxter, Sohee Park
1 citation
Felt presence (FP) is the experience that another entity is present in one's proximal environment, despite no sensory evidence. Occurrence of FP is linked to psychosis risk, but qualities of FP in the context of psychosis are not well understood. We conducted an online, exploratory survey assessing qualities of FP in relation to psychosis risk in the general population. Three hundred and...
November 3, 2025
Anne Felsenheimer, Tatiana Baxter, Michael Sangimino et al.
preprint
Background: Felt presence (FP) – the sensation of someone nearby without sensory evidence – is common in healthy adults and related to psychosis risk. FP may arise from a misattribution of internal signals to an external source and often occurs when people are alone. Interoception, the ability to perceive one’s own bodily signals, may help to distinguish oneself from others. FP could relate to...
The lancet. Psychiatry
May 1, 2023
Joseph M Barnby, Sohee Park, Tatiana Baxter et al.
1 citation
The felt presence experience is the basic feeling that someone else is present in the immediate environment, without clear sensory evidence. Ranging from benevolent to distressing, personified to ambiguous, felt presence has been observed in neurological case studies and within psychosis and paranoia, associated with sleep paralysis and anxiety, and recorded within endurance sports and...
Psychopathology
2023
Cherise Rosen, Sohee Park, Tatiana Baxter et al.
13 citations
The experience of "sensed presence" or "felt presence" in the absence of "other" has been described as a complex multimodal experience to which meaning is given. Sensed presence (SenP) is a transdiagnostic experience that exists along a continuum that can appear during isolation, spirit quests, exposure to extreme elements, bereavement, anxiety, and psychosis. Given the prevalence and vast...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
2020
Rachel V Aaron, Scott D Blain, Matthew A Snodgress et al.
Alexithymia, or a reduced ability to label and describe one's emotions, is a transdiagnostic construct associated with poor psychosocial outcomes. Currently, the mechanisms underlying affective deficits associated with alexithymia are unclear, hindering targeted treatment delivery. Recent research suggests deficient interoceptive awareness, or reduced awareness of one's internal bodily state,...
PsyCh journal
March 1, 2019
Taylor L Benson, Peter Brugger, Sohee Park
Anomalous or weakened sense of self was central to early theories of schizophrenia. Recent studies have also documented disturbances in body ownership and increased susceptibility for dissociative experiences, such as the out-of-body experience in individuals with schizophrenia, but further research is necessary to clarify components of bodily self-disturbances in the schizophrenia spectrum,...
Schizophr Bull
February 1, 2019
Elizabeth Pienkos, Anne Giersch, Marie Hansen et al.
93 citations
Recent psychiatric research and treatment initiatives have tended to move away from traditional diagnostic categories and have focused instead on transdiagnostic phenomena, such as hallucinations. However, this emphasis on isolated experiences may artificially limit the definition of such phenomena and ignore the rich, complex, and dynamic changes occurring simultaneously in other domains of...
PLoS One
June 10, 2016
Katharine N Thakkar, Heathman S Nichols, Lindsey G Mcintosh et al.
273 citations
A weakened sense of self may contribute to psychotic experiences. Body ownership, one component of self-awareness, can be studied with the rubber hand illusion (RHI). Watching a rubber hand being stroked while one's unseen hand is stroked synchronously can lead to a sense of ownership over the rubber hand, a shift in perceived position of the real hand, and a limb-specific drop in stimulated...
Schizophrenia Research
2014
Ji-Won Hur, Jun Soo Kwon, Tae Young Lee et al.
165 citations
Disturbances of the minimal self, characterized by abnormal sense of the body, body ownership and agency have been proposed as the phenomenological phenotype of schizophrenia. However, self-disturbances have not been extensively investigated, in part, due to the subjective nature of such processes, and the associated difficulty of studying these phenomena using empirical methodology. Of 115...