"I can't tell whether it's my hand": a pilot study of the neurophenomenology of body representation during the rubber hand illusion in trauma-related disorders.
European journal of psychotraumatology January 1, 2016 Daniela Rabellino, Sherain Harricharan, Paul A Frewen et al. 25 citations
In individuals with the dissociative subtype of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the rubber hand illusion (RHI) provokes complex and differentiated responses, including subjective distress, depersonalization, derealization, tonic immobility, increased physiological arousal, and flashbacks. The illusion was induced after both synchronous and asynchronous brushing. These findings suggest that the RHI acts as a strong provocation stimulus, eliciting individual patterns of symptom presentation related to body misrepresentation and altered body ownership. The paradigm may be useful for studying the neurophenomenology of body distortion in trauma-related altered states of consciousness.