What to Expect when Starting Psychotherapy
Feeling Unreal June 22, 2023 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197622445.003.0011 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Practical guide or manual Peer reviewed |
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| Key points | The chapter proposes that early psychotherapy for depersonalization/derealization disorder should include evaluation plus psychoeducation, and identifies nine topics it presents as useful to address at the start of treatment, including labeling and normalization, causal attributions, the seeming physicality of symptoms, loss of control, fears about offspring and pregnancy, diary-based symptom monitoring, obsessions and compulsions, and meaning making in drug-induced cases. |
Abstract
Abstract This chapter reviews the steps involved in evaluating patients who may have depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD), along with basic psychoeducational and psychotherapeutic principles that facilitate the initiation of treatment. Nine topics that often come up at the start of psychotherapy with DDD patients, and are very helpful to address early on, are formulated and discussed. These are labeling and normalization; knowing what depersonalization/derealization (dpdr) is and is not; the question of what “caused” it; addressing the seeming physicality of dpdr symptoms; the sense of loss of control; the fear of passing on dpdr to one’s offspring and pregnancy; symptom monitoring and the use of a diary; dpdr-related obsessions and compulsions; and meaning making, especially in the case of drug-induced dpdr.