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Daphne Simeon and Jeffrey Abugel's highly readable book offers an excellent introduction to the topic of depersonalization, on the spectrum from a transient symptom to an enduring disorder. Their book will be of considerable interest to analysts, especially those who treat adolescents
and young adults, who are in the phase of life when depersonalization usually begins. Simeon is a psychiatrist “recognized as the leading investigator of depersonalization in the United States” (p. 4). Abugel identifies himself as “a journalist who experienced the condition for more than a decade and explored its philosophical and literary implications for years to follow” (p. 4). The authors' collaboration enriches the scope of this intriguing book.
Severe emotional neglect emerges as a common childhood trauma in the etiology of depersonalization disorder. Simeon's research on sixty adults investigated six types of childhood trauma, but she failed to measure emotional neglect. To her credit, she later recognized that she had “neglected” a crucial causal factor. Some of her case examples provide eloquent descriptions of such neglect. Further, her clinical material suggests that some patients learned to use depersonalization to “escape” from severe parental discord.
Adults with depersonalization often suffer severe dysphoria when they do not feel that their condition is adequately understood by their therapists. Simeon's data suggest that this reaction is in part a parental transference, reviving the perceived pathogenic failure of parents to validate the child's painful feelings. In some cases, the patient internalized a parental expectation that troubling feelings would never be openly expressed. Depersonalization later results from a chronic disconnection from the sort of emotional validation that provides the glue for an affectively integrated sense of genuine identity, a “true self.”
One of the many pleasures of reading this book comes from its generous review of relevant contribut