An interesting article on depersonalization

After seeing this film I was interested enough in the subject that I looked what my university library might have on it, and found the article excerpted below insightful. It's a ten-page article and below I only set down its concluding points. But the points are an interesting summary of what causes depersonalization, and how this particular doctor cures it. The whole article is worth tracking down.

The article is from the "Hillside Journal of Clinical Psychiatry," 9(2), Fall/Winter, 1987, pp 133-143. It's titled, "The Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Depersonalization Disorder," authored by Evan M. Torch, M.D.

Concluding bit from article:

A. A series of wounds are suffered as a child during an obvious period of total dependency, with a constant inability to satisfy parental demands.

B. With this negative conceptual framework, the patient maintains an extreme over-dependence on external sources for his self-esteem and sense of worth; this over-dependence is bound to fall short at meeting the individual's needs for love and affection so; in certain individuals with predisposition to obsessional thinking and metaphysical orientation, the concept of "self" is made the focus for hypochondriacal preoccupation.

D. The hypochondriasis is focused and refocused on the need to find a source for a feeling of being inadequate, less than perfect, etc.

E. There develops an obsession with "self."

F. Failure of the "self" to withstand such rigorous scrutiny.

G. Depersonalization.

H. The patient is shown the basis for his feelings of worthlessness in his unrealistic expectation that he will be able to live up to parental expectations which were unrealistic and overdone.

I. He is shown that his dependency as a child left him unable to do anything but liken his inevitable shortfall in accomplishments to some innate personal shortcoming.

J. The parents' own neurotic traits are demonstrated.

K. The patient is encouraged to "transfer responsibility back" to the parents for feelings of worthlessness.

L. The self is rendered, thereby, more innately acceptable since the patient is able to see the illusory nature of his feelings of continued dependency on external sources for approval and acceptance.

M. With lessened standards of acceptability, the self is rendered originally and in a continuing fashion adequate and acceptable.

N. There is, as a result, less need for scrutiny and more interaction with that "self" in the environment as

O. The environment is rendered less judgmental.

P. Dissociation, as a defense, ceases to be necessary as a protection from feelings of external rejection.