What’s the relationship between depersonalization and disidentification?
This is something I am curious about, and I thought I would explore it a bit here. I am sure many have already addressed this topic, although I am not very up-to-date1.
In brief, depersonalization is a term used in psychology and typically happens in response to trauma. Disidentification, as used in spirituality, is a softening or absence of identification with stories – with the viewpoint of stories and their associated identities.
DEPERSONALIZATION
Depersonalization is a dissociative phenomenon characterized by a subjective feeling of detachment from oneself, manifesting as a sense of disconnection from one’s thoughts, emotions, sensations, or actions, and often accompanied by a feeling of observing oneself from an external perspective. Subjects perceive that the world has become vague, dreamlike, surreal, or strange, leading to a diminished sense of individuality or identity. Sufferers often feel as though they are observing the world from a distance, as if separated by a barrier “behind glass”.
– Depersonalization in Wikipedia
DISIDENTIFICATION
Disidentification is simply the absence of identification, the absence of the contraction, the absence of the belief. If you believe that there is a part that is pushed away, you are making it real; the mind is still holding on, contracting in that place. The mind is still restricting itself. Identification is a contraction, and disidentification is a relaxation of that contraction.
– Diamond Heart Book Three, pg. 171
DEPERSONALIZATION & DISIDENTIFICATION
I can’t help wondering if the two are not quite similar, and I am reminded of this quote2:
The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.
– Joseph Campbell in Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research
Could it be that depersonalization is the mind shifting center of gravity into Big Mind as a safety valve in response to trauma, and the psyche doesn’t understand what’s going on? It’s not familiar with or prepared for awakening, and the shift is not strong enough for Big Mind to come strongly and undeniably into the foreground, so what’s happening is interpreted in a scary direction. It feels that something has gone wrong. Could the main difference be in how the psyche responds to and interprets the shift?
DEPERSONALIZATION SYMPTOMS
Let’s look at the symptoms of depersonalization listed above:
a subjective feeling of detachment from oneself, manifesting as a sense of disconnection from one’s thoughts, emotions, sensations, or actions, and often accompanied by a feeling of observing oneself from an external perspective
When Big Mind comes more strongly into the foreground, there is a loss of identification with this human self or a doer or observer or anything else within the content of experience. This human self lives its own life, like anything else. There is no center anymore connected with this human self, at least not one that has any substance.
the world has become vague, dreamlike, surreal, or strange
To ourselves, we are consciousness whether we notice or not. The world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are. It has a dreamlike nature for that reason, whether we notice or not.
leading to a diminished sense of individuality or identity
A disidentification with this human self and its identities.
In the Wikipedia text, there is also this:
self and other or self and world may seem to be non-distinguishable
To us, any content of experience – this human self, others, the wider world – happens within and as what we are. It happens within and as the consciousness we are, whether we notice or not. In that sense, it’s all one to us, whether we notice or not. In this case, it may be noticed.
A DIFFERENT CONTEXT
This is not to minimize or dismiss the distress that can come with depersonalization or the seriousness of the trauma that’s behind it. All of it needs to be taken seriously, and there are fortunately ways to work with trauma.
Still, this perspective can offer a different context for understanding depersonalization. The consciousness we are may notice itself in those situations, and not understand what’s happening.
In addition to therapy and trauma and somatic work, and if the person is interested and ready, I suspect it could be helpful to invite in a noticing of the nature of what we are, for instance through the Big Mind process. In the right context, it would help demystify and normalize it.
Instead of being a problem, it would be a portal to exploring our nature and returning home.
NOTES
(1) I would love to read about this and many other topics, I haven’t been able to read more than brief texts for the last fifteen years due to the CFS brain fog.
(2) Just to be clear, Campbell talks about psychosis which is different from depersonalization, although it still applies as I see it.
Image is created by me and Midjourney