Emotional detachment

Despite their importance in psychiatry, the neuroleptics are by no means cure-alls. Even patients that respond extremely well to neuroleptics remain disturbed. Specifically, though their florid hallucinations and delusions, the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, are alleviated, patients remain emotionally detached from the environment. This wallflower syndrome and related symptoms are commonly designated the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and often are the most disabling ones. The first glimmer of effective treatment of such negative symptoms came with the drug clozapine. 

Although still sensitive to their well-being, he or she is emotionally detached from parents. 

ACUTE HEALTH RISKS mild irritation of skin and eyes irritation to the respiratory tract coughing shortness of breath headache abdominal pain nausea vomiting sweating weakness diarrhea depression lethargy disorientation visual and auditory hallucination delusions perceptual distortions emotional detachment kidney damage. 

Contradicting his supposed enlightenment is the fact that he sells drugs, is completely emotionally detached, and is fascinated by death. In fact, his veneer of serenity is what I call a Mask, or false front (see Chapter 2.1. "NPC Interesting Techniques"). 

Socially-isolated clients without an adequate support network to confirm the shift the client is making from user to non-user, or those living in a hostel, may have a poor chance of benefiting from a shortterm group. During the assessment it is important to notice whether the client is able to show emotion, or speaks in a detached or stilted way, or seems cut off. 

Reports from d-ASCs indicate that the sense of ego can be disengaged from a wide variety of kinds of information and situations to which it is normally attached. Memories, for example, may come into your consciousness accompanied by the feeling that this is your memory, as just information pulled from memory. This can be therapeutically useful for recovering information about traumatic events from a patient who is unable to handle the emotional charge on the events. The sense of ego can also be detached from the body, so that you are associated simply with a body rather than your body. Reaction to pain, for instance, can be altered this way. You may feel a stimulus as just as painful as ordinarily, but you do not get upset about it because you are not being injured. Situations that evoke particular roles may not evoke such roles in d-ASCs. For example, all the necessary stimulus elements may be present for automatically invoking the role of teacher, but in the d-ASC the role does not appear. The sense of ego can be detached from possessions and responsibilities, and even from actions, so that things you do seem not to be your actions for which you are responsible, but just actions. 

DOB is purported to move the user s point of view to "the edge of reality." In other words, one s locus of identity tends to become detached and objective in a manner reminiscent to the "witness consciousness" described in various spiritual traditions. Some claim that in this condition unpleasant or "dark" aspects of one s life and psyche can be examined especially closely, because although the pain associated with such observations may be experienced intensely, the user does not necessarily lose his or her sense of self within the ensuing emotional miasma. This quality purportedly allows users to inspect these less-savory dimensions of their existence with a diminished sense of threat. 

Schizoid personality disorder a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression. 

Given the impulsive nature of many emotional reactions, it would seem that an agent thus motivated would be too caught up in the situation to have the detachment of mind required to misrepresent his motivation. Yet there are at least two classes of cases in which this seems to happen quite frequently. In the first place, the agent may explain his past emotional behavior as really motivated by reason (or... 

In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (15), a characteristic set of symptoms develops following exposure to an event that induces extreme fear or terror (e.g., war, rape). These symptoms include a persistent and intrusive reexperiencing of the event through flashbacks or nightmares, and an intense distress at exposure to cues that are reminiscent of the event. The sufferer deliberately avoids such stimuli and may become detached, withdrawn, and emotionally numb. Additional symptoms include insomnia, impaired concentration, and unprovoked anger. Prevalence... 

She escaped that life, and she seems to have escaped its emotional clutches. She describes her parents with detachment, humor, and little trace of any German accent. 

Consider Whoopi Goldberg She has Aquarius rising, so she appears progressive, sociable, and eccentric — a personality with a lively mind and a detached, observant approach to life. In fact, her Sun is in Scorpio, so beneath her brilliant Aquarian surface, she s intensely emotional, passionate, and secretive — not detached at all. 

---