Clinicians researching and treating depersonalization disorder at the Depersonalisation Research Unit of King’s College London have described lamotrigine as “often our first-line treatment for the condition” (Medford et al., 2005): Lamotrigine conversely inhibits the release of glutamate, and has been found to attenuate the effects of ketamine, including symptoms of depersonalization and derealization. This approach is based on the ability of some dissociative drugs, particularly ketamine, to induce pronounced symptoms of depersonalization by antagonizing NMDA receptors and stimulating the release of glutamate. One of the few pharmacological treatments that has shown some efficacy in clinical studies and individual case reports is the combination of serotonergic antidepressants, such as SSRIs or SNRIs, with the anticonvulsant and mood stabilizer lamotrigine (Lamictal). Numerous approaches have been tried in small studies, including antidepressant medication, opioid antagonists, cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness therapy, biofeedback, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (Hunter, Charlton, & David, 2017). Despite its severe impact on sufferers, very few treatments have been found to be effective in treating chronic depersonalization. Regardless of the emotional flattening often experienced in depersonalization disorder, the emotional pain of living with depersonalization can be profound and unbearable, and the pervasive sense of existence as being unreal can lead to a total disinvestment from one’s life in the world. The syndrome of chronic depersonalization is typically constant and unremitting, and this highly distressing condition is associated with a number of adverse mental health and social outcomes. Depersonalization disorder is not a psychotic condition: those experiencing this have an intact grasp of reality it is the feeling of existence that has taken on these peculiar and unnerving textures (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). They may feel that the world around them is lifeless, colorless, or less than real their life can feel dreamlike or as if they’re separated from the world by a veil or fog. Sufferers may experience themselves as separated into an exterior participator who moves about in the world and an interior observer who remarks on this. These can include emotional numbing or feeling like a robot, a sense of having “no self”, a perceived loss of agency in one’s life, and a lack of spontaneity.

Depersonalization disorder (DPD), also known as depersonalization/derealization syndrome, is a dissociative condition characterized by feelings of “unreality”.

Depersonalization treatments