Acute peritraumatic dissociation: in favor of a phenomenological inquiry

Clarifying and measuring the characteristics of experiences that involve a loss of self or a dissolution of its boundaries

Mystical experience, non-dual awareness, selflessness, self-transcendent experience, and ego-dissolution have become increasingly prominent constructs in meditation and psychedelic research. However, these constructs and their measures tend to be highly overlapping, imprecise, and poorly integrated with similar pathological experiences. The present study seeks to clarify the common factors involved in the characteristics of these experiences using precise distinctions across an array of experience contexts (including meditation, psychedelics, and psychopathology). Participants (N = 386) completed an online survey about an experience that involved either a dissolution of self-boundaries or a loss of selfhood. Confirmatory factor analyses resulted in 16 experience characteristics, including multiple types of changes in sense of self, co-occurring phenomenology, and cognitive and affective responses. Qualitative thematic analysis provided rich descriptions of experience characteristics. Taken together, results lead to a more specific measurement model and descriptive account of experiences involving a loss of self or self-boundary.

Somatic Apathy

Muselmannwas a term used in German concentration camps to describe prisoners near death due to exhaustion, starvation, and helplessness. This paper suggests that the inhuman conditions in the concentration camps resulted in the development of a defensive sense of disownership toward the entire body. The body, in such cases, is reduced to a pure object. However, in the case of theMuselmannthis body-as-object is felt to belong to the captors, and as such is therefore identified as a tool to inflict suffering and pain on theMuselmannhimself. In this situation, lacking cognitive resources, theMuselmannmay have no other alternative than to treat his body as an enemy, and then to retreat or disinvest from the body. This response is a form of somatic apathy, an indifference that is tied to a loss of the self/non-self distinction. This may, in turn, lead to suicidal inclinations, even after liberation from the camp.