Depersonalization Disorder: Directed Forgetting as a Function of Emotionality.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Dissociation is linked to emotional information processing, but findings are inconsistent.
• Depersonalization Disorder (DDD) involves persistent feelings of unreality or detachment.
• Emotionally avoidant processing is a proposed mechanism in dissociation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate emotionally avoidant information processing in Depersonalization Disorder (DDD).
• To utilize a directed forgetting (DF) paradigm to assess attentional control over emotional stimuli.
• To explore the relationship between dissociation severity and directed forgetting performance.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-two participants with DSM-IV DDD and 40 healthy controls completed an item-method DF task.
• Participants processed positive, negative, and neutral words.
• Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) were administered.

Main Results:

• The DDD group exhibited significantly reduced directed forgetting for negative words compared to controls.
• No significant differences in DF were found for positive or neutral words.
• Higher scores on DES (total, depersonalization/derealization, amnesia) predicted poorer recall of to-be-forgotten negative words.

Conclusions:

• Findings do not support emotionally avoidant processing in DDD within this paradigm.
• DDD may be characterized by a diminished capacity to actively disengage attention from emotionally salient material.
• Impaired attentional control, rather than avoidance, may underlie emotional processing deficits in DDD.