Using Spinoza to Address Experiences of Selfhood within Existential Anxiety and Self-Referential Processing in Depersonalization-Derealization
Jeremy Cooper
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Anxiety Ego dissolution |
| Key points | Proposes that Spinoza's conatus offers a useful lens for conceptualizing self-referential processes in depersonalization-derealization disorder and existential anxiety. |
Abstract
Presentations of existential anxiety within depersonalization-derealization disorder both present as symptoms to be reduced and highlight a particular trend for understanding self-referential processes. In offering a possible neurophenomenological conceptualization of how oneself attempts to understand oneself through the course of experiencing existential anxiety, a lens through Spinoza’s conatus may offer insight. This argument seeks to combine Spinoza’s conatus with insights from lived experience in an attempt to better understand the nature of self-referential processes, how one distinguishes who they are as a person amidst the demands of the environment around them. This argument will present a conceptualization of how conatus functions that aligns with the current findings and can be used to inform clinical recommendations and future research into the neurophenomenological program and dissociative disorders as a whole.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on anxiety, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychedelics as Medicines: An Emerging New Paradigm General population | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Learning to Let Go: A Cognitive-Behavioral Model of How Psychedelic Therapy Promotes Acceptance | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Taking Psychedelics Seriously | 2018 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How could MDMA (ecstasy) help anxiety disorders? A neurobiological rationale | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Embedding existential psychology within psychedelic science: reduced death anxiety as a mediator of the therapeutic effects of psychedelics | 2019 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |