Depersonalization Disorder is when a person experiences a feeling of being detached from life around them and sometimes emotionally numb. It is often a symptom of another disorder such as anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder and particularly panic disorder, or of an illness like epilepsy or migraine, but also occurs in its own right and among users of certain drugs. CBT is an effective treatment. PRAISE FOR THE SERIES: 'The best consumer-friendly CBT-based books&All are very thorough.' Observer 'The Overcoming series just keeps getting better and better.' The Psychologist
"Terror, disaster, memory, selfhood, happiness . . . leave it to a poet to tackle the unthinkable so wisely and so wittily."* A literary guide to life in the pre-apocalypse, The Unreality of Memory collects profound and prophetic essays on the Internet age’s media-saturated disaster coverage and our addiction to viewing and discussing the world’s ills. We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase “Did you see?” The feeling that we’re living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten—and each new catastrophe distracts us from the last. The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end—if indeed it will—and why we can’t stop fantasizing about it. Can we avoid repeating history? Can we understand our moment from inside the moment? With The Unreality of Memory, Gabbert offers a hauntingly perceptive analysis of our new ways of being and a means of reconciling ourselves to this unreal new world. "A work of sheer brilliance, beauty and bravery.” *—Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less
"Everything feels unreal to me, like a dream...I feel detached, like a stranger to myself." These are quotes from actual people, experiencing something they don't understand. What they are saying is being heard by friends, families, and physicians today more than ever before. They do not simply suffer from anxiety, or depression, and they are not schizophrenic. They have found themselves trapped in a very real and singular disorder, yet few even know its name. Their enigmatic state of mind has been studied for more than 100 years, but only recently has it become clear how prevalent and how distinctive it really is. The condition is called Depersonalization Disorder, and Feeling Unreal is the first book to reveal what it's all about. This important volume explores not only Depersonalization, but the philosophical and literary implications of selflessness as well, while providing the latest research, possible treatments, and ways to live and thrive when life seems "unreal." For those who still believe that such experiences are merely part of something else, that depersonalization is just a symptom and not a disorder in its own right, Feeling Unreal presents compelling evidence to the contrary. This book provides long-awaited answers for people suffering from Depersonalization Disorder and their loved ones, for mental health professionals, and for all students of the condition, while serving as a wake up call to the medical community at large.
'The first of its kind, this self-help book will offer guidance, help and solace to the many sufferers of depersonalization disorder.' Daphne Simeon, Depersonalisation and Dissociation Program, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York Depersonalization disorder can make you feel detached from life and many people describe feeling 'emotionally numb', unreal or even as if their body doesn't belong to them. It can be a symptom of another problem such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and, particularly, of panic disorder, or of an illness like epilepsy or migraine. It can also occur in its own right and/or as a side effect of certain drugs. This self-help book, written by leading experts, will help you to understand what causes depersonalization disorder and what can keep it going, and will introduce you to effective strategies to overcome it: Based on clinically proven cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques Clear and accessible step-by-step exercises and tools, including diary-keeping and problem-solving Overcoming self-help guides use clinically proven techniques to treat long-standing and disabling conditions, both psychological and physical. Many guides in the Overcoming series are recommended under the Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme. Series Editor: Professor Peter Cooper
When you have depersonalization disorder, nothing seems real. You may feel detached from reality, even from your own thoughts, as though you are going through the motions of living without ever being truly connected to your experiences. Whether your depersonalization developed after a traumatic experience or is something you've always lived with, this book can help you reconnect with life again. Overcoming Depersonalization Disorder can help you diagnose the type and degree of your depersonalization disorder, come to understand why it developed, and cope with your symptoms using practical skills drawn from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Ready to feel real again? Put the practical skills in this book to work in your life right now and start reintegrating yourself back into the world and reconnecting to your own vibrant thoughts and feelings.
This study reviews the images and meanings which play a vital role in our mass-mediated world. The author demonstrates that there is often a large gap between reality and the reconstruction of realities as communicated by the mass media.
The author of Zero and Proofiness explains how to tell truth from fantasy in the digital world, and why it matters Today, the Internet allows us to spread information faster and to more people than ever before—never mind whether it’s true or not. In Virtual Unreality, mathematician, science reporter, and journalist watchdog Charles Seife takes us deep into the information jungle and cuts a path through the trickery, fakery, and cyber skullduggery that the Internet enables. Providing a much-needed toolkit to help separate fact from fiction, Seife, with his trademark wit and skepticism, addresses the problems that face us every time we turn on our computers and Google our most recent medical symptoms, read a politician’s tweet, fact-check something on Wikipedia, or start an online relationship. Let the clicker beware.
READY TO FEEL LIKE YOUR NORMAL SELF AGAIN? Depersonalization & derealization are the third most common mental health symptoms next to anxiety & depression. Millions suffer from it, yet it is virtually unstudied in medicine. Why? There are a couple theories. Mostly I think it's because it mimics the same symptoms of anxiety & depression, and often DP/DR accompanies anxiety & depression. They seem to all be interconnected in some way. Anxiety & depression get much more research put into them because they are way more frequently seen, but the problem is that DP/DR are both very, very hard to effectively describe to someone who has not experienced it. -From Stop Unreality Stop Unreality can help you to understand the inner-workings of depersonalization & derealization, along with battling against anxiety & depression. It is a guide directly taken from a sufferer of these conditions, and it utilizes tools that will help you toward a potential speedy recovery. From theories to therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Mindfulness techniques, Stop Unreality can help put an end to feelings of unreality, and help you to live a better life with the condition.
Charles Crittenden here offers an original solution to one of the traditional dilemmas of philosophy—whether there can be any thing not existing, since to say that some thing does not exist seems to presuppose its existence. Drawing on the tools of Wittgensteinian philosophy and speech act theory, Crittenden argues that we can and often do make reference to unreal objects such as fictional characters, though they do not exist in any sense at all.
