This study was begun in the context of the contradictory observations that, on the one hand, depersonalization rarely occurs in children and, on the other, that adult patients suffering depersonalization often remember their first such experience as having occurred in childhood.

Our observations suggest that children do have experiences of depersonalization. Their descriptions of them are very like those of adults. Like adults, they describe the loss of a sense of reality without disturbance in reality testing. They recognize these experiences as distinct from other feelings and can articulate them in the clinical context. Depersonalization states are recognized in a fairly wide age-range. They are observed in a wide range of pathology from the severe disturbance of Gary to the relatively mild one of Ruth. They may be triggered off easily in the context of severe ego disturbance, as in Gary, or in the context of severe stress as in the other children. The experience is intensely unpleasant and children react to it with marked anxiety.