Changes

The term "depersonalization" refers to the [[appearance ]] of [[subjective ]] impressions of [[change ]] affecting the person or the surrounding [[world]]. Their intensity varies, ranging from a simple [[feeling ]] of dizziness to painful [[feelings ]] of [[physical ]] transformation, from the fleeting feeling of [[estrangement ]] to the impression that the world has become unrecognizable, [[dead]], or uninhabited. Moments of depersonalization can occur during the customary [[development ]] of any [[individual ]] or within overtly pathological [[clinical ]] settings.

The [[concept ]] of depersonalization is not directly [[present ]] in the [[work ]] of Sigmund [[Freud]]. In "[[Psychoanalytic ]] [[notes ]] on an autobiographical account of a [[case ]] of [[paranoia ]] ([[dementia ]] paranoides)" (1911c [1910]), the elements of depersonalization perceptible in the [[subject]]'s memory—themes of physical transformation, nerves of voluptuousness, the "hastily improvised men"—are not treated as such by Freud. Similarly the themes of depersonalization found in the Wolf Man—the "[[veil]]" that is torn during successive washings—are not referred to as such even though they are [[analyzed ]] in depth (1918b [1914]). It is possible that it was only after the development of his concept of [[narcissism ]] and the reorganization of the concept of the ego it contained that Freud became aware of depersonalization, in "The [[Uncanny]]" (1919h) and later in "A [[Disturbance ]] of [[Memory ]] on the Acropolis" (1936a). In both cases it is through feelings affecting the [[perception ]] of the [[outside ]] world that the topic is * Stewart, Walter A. (1964). Depersonalization. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic [[Association]], 12, 171-186.

[[Paul ]] Schilder was one of the first authors to take an interest in depersonalization. He saw it as a function of the [[libido]]'s [[withdrawal ]] of [[cathexis ]] from the [[image ]] of the [[body]]. Paul Federn believed it corresponded to an alteration of the distribution of [[narcissistic ]] libido throughout the body and its boundaries. Hermann Nunberg associated it with the [[loss ]] of a significant [[object]]. Clarence Oberdorf emphasized the polymorphism of the clinical situations in which it could be observed and Andrew Peto investigated the [[role ]] of the precocious loss of [[introjection]]. Maurice Bouvet, in an important study entitled "Dépersonalisation et relation d'[[objet]]," demonstrated the similarity of [[structure ]] between states of depersonalization in their various clinical forms and treated "depersonalization as a [[state ]] of weakened ego structure." He insisted on the importance of a "rapprochement" with the object, that is a decrease in the creation of [[psychic ]] distance to the object, whereby the object returns to the [[position ]] it held in the subject's [[unconscious ]] [[fantasies]]. He also pointed out the [[character ]] of the [[object relation ]] that made it a narcissistic object since "the maintenance of the ego structure . . . depends on its unconditional and absolute possession." Bouvet also noted the importance of the [[conflict ]] between the [[need ]] to [[introject ]] the object and the [[fear ]] of this introjection.

See also: Boredom; Bouvet, Maurice Charles Marie Germain; Ego boundaries; Ego feeling; Estrangement; Face-to-face [[situation]]; Disintegration, feelings of, ([[anxieties]]); Rosenfeld, Herbert Alexander; [[Self]]-[[consciousness]]; Tomasi di Palma Lampedusa-Wolff Stomersee, Alexandra.[[Bibliography]]

* [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1919h). The uncanny. SE, 17: 217-256.