Revelatory Anxiety and Dissociative Disorders: An Existential-Humanistic Approach

Abstract

This article argues that an existential-humanistic approach to anxiety provides crucial insight to certain dissociative disorders, namely, depersonalization/derealization disorder (DPR/DRZ). Although reports suggest that nearly 200,000 people in the United States experience DPR/DRZ episodes each day, DPR/DRZ has remained understudied and misunderstood by the psychiatric community. This article argues that an existential-humanistic approach to the disorder informed by the work of Sartre, Heidegger, and May allows DPR/DRZ sufferers to understand their dissociative episodes as ontological engagements with the human condition that provides a shared sense of being-in-the-world. As rates of anxiety disorders continue to reach unprecedented levels and treatment plans have become increasingly equated with medication, the second portion of this article argues that an existential-humanistic approach might produce better therapeutic results while allowing DPR/DRZ sufferers to generate meaning out of their anxiety. The argument extends outside of the therapeutic setting and suggests that existential modes of thinking can be employed by the broader public when dealing with everyday experiences of anxiety.