2008/10/21 by James Lickel, James J. Lickel, Elizabeth Nelson +4 · 1 citation
Medicine · Psychology · #Anxiety #Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes #Burnout #Clinical psychology #Depersonalization #Derealization #Dissociative #Emotional exhaustion #Hyperventilation #Mental Health Research Topics #Psychiatry #Psychology #Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments #Psychotherapist
paper · doi:10.1891/0889-8391.22.4.321
openalex publication_date 2008/10/21 · crossref created 2008/10/21 · crossref issued 2008/11/01 · crossref published 2008/11/01 · crossref published-online 2008/11/01 · crossref published-print 2008/11/01 · crossref deposited 2019/09/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/06/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
This study examined the potential of 11 interoceptive exposure exercises to produce depersonalization and derealization among high anxiety-sensitive undergraduate students. Inspired by a February 2007 thread on the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies listserv, we identified nine exercises and compared their capacity to produce depersonalization and derealization with two previously validated tasks: mirror and dot staring. Results indicated that five exercises, including hyperventilation (1 minute), hyperventilation (5 minutes), hyperventilation plus spiral staring, hyperventilation plus strobe light, and strobe light alone, were superior to either mirror or dot staring at inducing depersonalization or derealization. If replicated in a clinical sample, our findings may be used to assist clinicians seeking to evoke these states via interoceptive exposure.