[Clinical characteristics of vital depersonalization in schizophrenia].

Vital depersonalization was observed in 59 out of 76 schizophrenic patients with the prevalence of depersonalization. Three interrelated components of vital depersonalization were distinguished. The main depersonalization component proper was manifested by the experience of estrangement and unreality of the feeling of existence ("self"). The second, affective one, was marked by vital fear and anxiety. The third one involved common sense disorders and was characterized by vital bodily sensations. Vital depersonalization had all the principal signs of depersonalization. However, it differed from the allo-, somato- and autotypes of depersonalization in disorders of the vital level: similarity to physical sensations, pain and vagueness. Vital depersonalization may be viewed as pathology of the first level of selfawareness--selfsence of awareness of vital ego or of body perception.