Elisabeth’s Article: An Interview With Dr. Julie Geraghty

Julie: We view depersonalisation and derealisation (DPDR) as protective parts of a person’s mind. Instead of seeing DPDR as a disorder – something is wrong with the mind – we frame it as your system trying to help. IFS calls these depersonalised/derealised parts, protectors, and their strategy is to take you out of a situation that feels harmful or overwhelming. These protectors develop early in life to defend more vulnerable aspects of the self that experienced some kind of trauma, whether it is abandonment, neglect or abuse. However, a protective part can get stuck in its role, like a broken record, and this can lead to persistent feelings of unreality. Its protective response can stop you fully living your life.

IFS therapy focuses on understanding and regulating these responses rather than suppressing them. Instead of talking about the depersonalisation, you talk to it. Listening, accepting, and acknowledging its protective role is often where the healing starts. According to IFS, this part still thinks you are a small person who needs protection. So you offer to update it, letting it know how old you are, and how you can cope without its strategy of disconnection.

IFS believes that we all have an inner healing resource called the Self (with a capital s). When the Self becomes curious about knowing a part better, and connects to it in a compassionate way, this can bring calm and validation to the part, which then can relax back and stop working so hard to protect the system.

Once this part can step back, other aspects of the self have more space to come back in, for instance being creative or sporty. Depersonalisation will always be part of you, however, its role changes into a more helpful part so it no longer takes you out of your life. For instance, it can become a monitoring part that notices your wellbeing and slows you down to prevent burnout.

Many people find it helpful to name it. I have a patient who calls her depersonalised part, Claudia (cloudier) because DPDR is like being in a cloud. However, instead of being afraid of the cloud and thinking, how thick it is, how long it will last, she speaks to it, saying, ‘oh, hi, Claudia, what’s going on?’ She and this part of her are in communication with each other, and she appreciates Claudia as a kind of weather warning.

For more information, I recommend reading No Bad Parts by Dr Richard Schwartz who developed the IFS model. Written in an accessible way, it has exercises to help people start identifying the main players in their own system.