Depersonalization and the immediacy of affect

Depersonalization, a condition where individuals feel detached from their own mind or body, involves a disruption of affect—the positive or negative felt valence that pervades experience. While depersonalized subjects do not lack affect entirely (they often find the condition unpleasant), they experience a deficit in affective immediacy: the direct motivational force that normally makes thoughts and behaviors intelligible. This account resolves the puzzle of how depersonalization can be an affective disorder without a complete loss of affect, and it illuminates the structure of affective experience, particularly how affect typically exerts rational authority over thought and action.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Our experience is pervaded with affect—positive or negative felt valence. Affect is thought to play a crucial role not just in emotions and moods, but also in perception, cognition, and decision-making. What might happen, then, if affect is disrupted? Subjects suffering from depersonalization give us an idea. There is significant evidence that depersonalization is in part an affective disorder. But of what kind? Here we face a puzzle. As many researchers note, depersonalized subjects do not appear to lack affect entirely. Indeed, a common complaint is that depersonalization is unpleasant. Thus, it is not plausible that depersonalization consists in a complete loss of affect. To resolve this problem, I develop a novel account of the affective deficit that lies at the heart of depersonalization/derealization disorder (DDD). In particular, I argue that depersonalization consists at least partly in a deficit in affective immediacy , or the role that affective states typically play in directly motivating certain thoughts and behaviors. This direct motivational force in turn makes these thoughts and actions readily intelligible to the subject. Having lost affective immediacy, depersonalized subjects feel detached from their own affective experiences and the thoughts and behaviors that they prompt. I argue that this account can shed light not only on the affective symptoms of depersonalization/derealization disorder but also resolve the aforementioned puzzle. I also argue that it helps us to understand the structure and nature of affective experience itself, in particular the way in which affective experience typically exerts its rational authority.