Feelings of disembodiment can be described as feeling "dead" or automaton-like. DDD patients feel a lack of body ownership feelings, a loss of agency, and can experience disembodiment anywhere from a non-specific feeling of not being in the body to an out-of-body experience.

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- Derealization
- Anomalous subjective recall
- Emotional numbing
- Feelings of disembodiment

Experiential Components of DDD

Sierra, M., & David, A. S. (2011). Depersonalization: A selective impairment of self-awareness. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(1), 99–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2010.10.018

Depersonalization: A selective impairment of self-awareness

Gentile, J. P., Snyder, M., & Gillig, P. M. (2014). STRESS AND TRAUMA: Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy for Depersonalization/ Derealization Disorder. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 11(7–8), 37–41. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204471/pdf/icns_11_7-8_37.pdf

STRESS AND TRAUMA: Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy for Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder

Anomalous subjective recall consists of difficulties remembering or imagining things. They're subtle subjective impairments affecting recall and imagery. The ability to retrieve information is unaffected, but episodic memories seem to have lost any personal meaning. Additionally, autobiographic memories are often remembered from a vantage point outside of the body. This component may serve as an avoidant function for people affected by trauma.

Anomalous Subjective Recall

Emotional numbing is the inability to feel emotions. In DDD patients, this may be observed on a spectrum. It often manifests as a loss of affection, pleasure, fear, or disgust. Sometimes it's an absolute inability to experience emotional states and other times it's a more subtle impairment (unable to experience emotional feelings that normally color perception and mental activity). An inability to perceive objects or concrete situations with emotional feeling, rather than a general inability to experience emotional states is also seen. Cognitive empathy is intact, but affective empathy is impaired.

Emotional Numbing

Feelings of Disembodiment

Derealization is a dissociative symptom characterized by a feeling of detachment or unfamiliarity with the external world. People, objects, and surroundings may seem unreal, distant, or distorted.

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