Glance Stealing and Dissociation: A Long-term Psychotherapy Case

Abstract

Depersonalization is one of the symptoms of dissociative disorder, which usually occurs in adolescence. It is a chronic condition of detachment from self and surrounding. The main purpose of this research is to analyze a long-term psychotherapy case in order to explore the transformation of the client's problems during the process and the progress of therapy. This research adopts the method of narrative analysis of the qualitative research. The client is a 20-year-old male junior student in college. The symptoms of panic, depersonalization, and derealization coexist. The client has received psychotherapy once a week from 2008 to 2010 for 57 therapy sessions in total. The recordings of the therapy sessions are transcribed and coded for the analysis of the client's transformation during the process of psychotherapy. The results of this research show that the level of the client's anxiety was lowered after psychotherapy. He was given a chance to express and integrate the negative feelings in the relationships. He had lessened the discussion on symptoms and shifted the focus to interpersonal relationships.