Introduction听
THE phenomenon of depersonalization (DP) herein defined as the spontaneous complaint of a psychiatric patient of a distortion in perception of his body has received considerable clinical1-4 and speculative attention,5,6 but experimental information concerning it is very limited. The main work on distortions of body perception in psychiatric patients has been carried out, not on DP states, but on schizophrenic states and has been concerned with the accuracy of body perception of patients in such states. Cleveland7 and Cleveland and Fisher et al8 have reported that schizophrenics underestimate the size of their body, especially hands and feet; and Reitman and Cleveland9 have reported that sensory deprivation enhances differences between schizophrenics and controls in accuracy of body image representation. Dillon,10 on the other hand, using apparatus providing for the direct measurement of perception of body