Depersonalization & Derealization Therapy in Washington, DC
Depersonalization and Derealization Therapist in Washington, DC
North Star Psychological Services provides therapy for depersonalization and derealization in Washington, DC for adults who feel unreal, detached from themselves, disconnected from their surroundings, emotionally numb, or frightened by the sense that something feels off. Our DPDR therapists work with symptoms that may occur alongside anxiety, panic, trauma, chronic stress, or emotional overload. In-person therapy is available near Dupont Circle, along with virtual and hybrid care.
In-person therapy in Dupont Circle and secure virtual therapy for clients in Washington, DC and participating PsyPact states.
Recognizing DPDR
How do I know if I’m experiencing depersonalization or derealization?
Depersonalization can feel like observing yourself rather than fully inhabiting your body, thoughts, emotions, voice, or memories. Derealization can make familiar surroundings feel dreamlike, artificial, foggy, flat, visually strange, or unexpectedly unfamiliar.
Many people with DPDR continue working, studying, parenting, dating, commuting, and answering emails while privately wondering why everything feels so unfamiliar. If the symptoms are causing fear, repeated checking, avoidance, or difficulty concentrating on ordinary life, it may be worth talking with a therapist who understands depersonalization and derealization.
DPDR may sound like:
- I know this is my apartment, but it looks strange or unreal
- I know this is my reflection, but it does not feel like me
- I feel like I am watching myself go through the day
- My voice, body, emotions, or memories feel oddly distant
- The world looks dreamlike, artificial, flat, or behind glass
- I keep checking whether I feel normal yet
Therapy can help you make sense of the experience without treating every unusual sensation as evidence that something catastrophic is happening.
Common signs
When should I see a therapist for depersonalization or derealization?
You do not need to wait until the symptoms take over your life. Therapy can be useful when fear, monitoring, avoidance, or uncertainty about the experience starts shaping your day.
- You feel detached from your body, thoughts, voice, reflection, or emotions
- Familiar places look dreamlike, artificial, distant, or visually strange
- You feel as though you are watching yourself instead of living normally
- You worry that you are “going crazy” or becoming permanently damaged
- You repeatedly check whether you feel real, present, or normal
- You monitor vision, lighting, body sensations, memory, or your sense of self
- You avoid Metro rides, stores, meetings, crowds, driving, or social plans because symptoms might spike
- Symptoms become stronger during panic, exhaustion, stress, or sleep disruption
- You spend a lot of time Googling symptoms or reading forums for reassurance
- The fear of DPDR is taking up more attention than the rest of your life
Depersonalization vs derealization
Common symptoms of depersonalization and derealization
Some people experience one more strongly than the other. Others move between both. Understanding the difference can make the experience easier to describe without turning the distinction into another symptom test.
Common symptoms of depersonalization
You may feel outside yourself, robotic, detached from your body, emotionally muted, or strangely distant from your own thoughts and memories. Your voice may sound unfamiliar. Your reflection may look like you without feeling familiar. You may feel as though you are observing your own life from a distance.
Common symptoms of derealization
Your apartment, office, classroom, Metro station, street, or another familiar place may suddenly feel dreamlike, flat, artificial, foggy, or visually off. People or familiar places may feel strangely unfamiliar, time may seem distorted, and the environment may feel distant even though you know where you are.
Both can occur together
You may feel detached from yourself while the world around you also feels unfamiliar. The symptoms can come and go, appear in episodes, or become more persistent depending on the person and the broader clinical picture.
DPDR vs anxiety vs dissociation
How is DPDR different from anxiety or dissociation?
These experiences can overlap, and one person may experience more than one. The useful question is which pattern is most central and what is keeping the symptoms distressing now.
DPDR
Depersonalization and derealization center on feeling detached from yourself or as though the world around you is unreal, dreamlike, distant, or unfamiliar. People often become frightened by the sensation and begin monitoring whether they feel normal.
Anxiety
Anxiety may involve worry, tension, panic, catastrophic thinking, physical arousal, or fear about what could happen. DPDR can occur during anxiety or panic, but the unreal or detached feeling is a distinct symptom. Learn more about anxiety therapy in Washington, DC.
Dissociation
Dissociation is a broader term for disruptions in connection, awareness, memory, identity, emotion, or perception. Depersonalization and derealization are specific dissociative experiences within that broader category.
DPDR vs psychosis
DPDR vs psychosis: does feeling unreal mean I am losing touch with reality?
In depersonalization/derealization disorder, people generally recognize that the unreal feeling is an experience rather than literally believing that the external world has changed. You may think, “I know this is my home, but it does not feel real,” or “I know this is my reflection, but it feels unfamiliar.”
That retained awareness is an important difference from some psychotic experiences. It is still possible to be unsure what is happening, however, and a webpage cannot diagnose the cause of unusual perceptions or beliefs.
When assessment is especially important
Seek professional assessment if symptoms are new, rapidly changing, accompanied by hallucinations or strongly fixed beliefs, involve severe confusion, follow substance use or medication changes, or make it difficult to distinguish your internal experience from external reality.
The goal is not to frighten you. It is to make sure an unfamiliar experience is understood in the right clinical context. If you are concerned about hallucinations, fixed beliefs, or a significant change in reality testing, you can also learn more about psychosis therapy in Washington, DC.
The Merck Manual describes intact reality testing as a key feature of depersonalization/derealization disorder and an important distinction from psychotic disorders.
You do not need to decide on your own whether this is DPDR, panic, another mental-health concern, or something medical.
A free consultation can help you describe what you are experiencing and think through whether outpatient therapy at North Star appears appropriate.
Catastrophic fear around DPDR
“Am I going crazy or permanently damaged?”
DPDR can feel so strange that the mind starts generating frightening explanations. You may worry that your brain is permanently damaged, that you will never feel normal again, or that the symptoms are proof you are losing control.
Those fears can become part of the cycle. The more threatening the sensation feels, the more closely you monitor it. The more closely you monitor it, the harder it becomes to direct attention toward work, relationships, conversation, movement, or the environment around you.
Therapy can help separate the sensation from the interpretation
- Sensation: “My surroundings feel strange.”
- Interpretation: “This means I am permanently damaged.”
- Sensation: “My reflection feels unfamiliar.”
- Interpretation: “This means I am losing my mind.”
The aim is not to argue yourself into certainty. It is to stop treating every symptom as an emergency that must be solved immediately.
Checking and reassurance loops
Why do I keep checking whether I feel real?
When DPDR feels frightening, it makes sense to search for evidence that you are okay. The problem is that repeated checking can teach your attention that the symptom must be monitored constantly.
Mirror checking
You may look at your reflection repeatedly to see whether your face feels familiar yet, then become more alarmed if it still feels strange.
Testing emotions
You may think about a partner, family member, memory, song, or favorite activity to see whether you “feel enough,” turning emotion into a test you have to pass.
Monitoring vision
You may study lighting, depth, colors, visual sharpness, your hands, or the room around you to decide whether your perception feels normal.
Googling and forum searching
You may repeatedly search symptoms, read DPDR stories, take online tests, or compare yourself with other people's experiences and feel reassured only briefly.
Asking other people
You may ask a partner or friend whether you seem normal, whether your behavior changed, or whether they think something is seriously wrong.
Mental checking
You may repeatedly ask yourself whether you feel present, remember events normally, recognize your surroundings, or still know who you are.
The cycle can look like this
Unreal feeling → fear → checking or reassurance → brief relief → attention returns to the symptom → more fear.
Therapy can help you interrupt that loop by changing what you do with the uncertainty rather than requiring you to prove that the sensation is completely gone.
If repetitive checking, mental reviewing, and reassurance seeking are familiar, North Star’s article Why Do I Overthink Everything? explores how repeated attempts to get certainty can keep attention locked on a fear.
DPDR and anxiety
Why does anxiety make me feel unreal?
Depersonalization or derealization can occur during intense anxiety or panic. Changes in breathing, dizziness, visual attention, heart rate, or body sensations can make the environment feel unfamiliar, and that unfamiliarity can become frightening in its own right.
Some people then begin fearing the derealization itself: “What if this means I am losing control?” That fear increases hypervigilance and self-monitoring, which can make the strange sensation even more noticeable. When panic is a major part of the pattern, you can also explore panic attack therapy in Washington, DC.
The panic-DPDR loop can feel fast
- A strange body or visual sensation appears
- You interpret it as dangerous
- Adrenaline and vigilance increase
- Your surroundings feel even more unreal
- You monitor the symptom more closely
Therapy can help reduce catastrophic interpretation, work with panic sensations, and make the experience less central even if a brief unreal feeling sometimes still appears.
Why DPDR happens
Why does DPDR happen?
There is not one universal cause of depersonalization or derealization. Some people notice DPDR in the context of anxiety, panic, chronic stress, trauma, sleep disruption, depression, exhaustion, or emotional overload. Others do not identify one obvious trigger. Treatment is more useful when it focuses on the actual pattern affecting you rather than forcing one explanation.
Trauma-related dissociation
For some people, detachment becomes a way the nervous system distances from overwhelming emotion or reminders of painful experiences. Treatment can address trauma when it is clearly part of the clinical picture. Learn more about trauma and PTSD therapy in Washington, DC.
Chronic stress
Long periods of overload, poor sleep, high responsibility, or emotional strain may make some people more vulnerable to feeling detached or unreal, especially when they are already anxious about the sensation.
Panic and anxiety
DPDR can become closely linked to fear of body sensations, hypervigilance, and repeated attempts to determine whether you are safe or normal. When anxiety is the broader pattern, anxiety therapy in Washington, DC may also be relevant.
Depression and emotional distance
Some people also feel emotionally flat or distant during depression, but DPDR is more specifically organized around detachment from self or surroundings and the sense that experience feels unreal.
Sleep disruption
Exhaustion can make concentration, perception, emotion, and anxiety harder to regulate. Sleep is worth assessing as part of the larger pattern rather than assuming it is the sole cause.
More than one factor may be present
The useful question is not always “What single thing caused this?” Therapy can help identify which factors are keeping the symptoms frightening or disruptive now.
The Mayo Clinic notes that severe stress and traumatic experiences can be associated with depersonalization/derealization disorder, while individual causes and contributing factors vary.
When additional evaluation matters
What if the symptoms started suddenly after cannabis, another substance, medication, or a medical event?
Sudden or atypical symptoms deserve careful assessment. If depersonalization or derealization began after cannabis or another substance, a medication change, head injury, seizure-like symptoms, or another significant physical or neurological event, it is important to involve an appropriate medical or psychiatric professional.
Therapy may still help with fear, avoidance, and symptom monitoring, but psychotherapy should not be used to assume away a possible medical, substance-related, or medication-related cause.
Do I need a brain scan?
DPDR is typically assessed clinically rather than diagnosed by a single scan or laboratory test. Medical testing may be considered when the history is unusual, symptoms are new, neurological signs are present, or another cause needs to be ruled out.
A therapist can help you think through whether additional medical or psychiatric evaluation should be part of the plan, but that decision depends on your specific history and symptoms.
What treatment can look like
What happens in DPDR therapy?
DPDR therapy usually begins by understanding when symptoms appear, what you fear they mean, which situations you avoid, and whether panic, anxiety, trauma, chronic stress, sleep disruption, or other factors are part of the picture. Treatment can help reduce catastrophic interpretations, repeated checking, reassurance seeking, and constant self-monitoring.
Therapy may also include grounding, attention-shifting, gradual re-entry into avoided situations, work with panic or trauma when relevant, and rebuilding routines that support sleep, concentration, relationships, and everyday functioning. The goal is not to force yourself to feel normal on command, but to reduce how much the symptoms control your attention and choices.
Map the pattern
We look at when symptoms appear, what you fear they mean, what you do to feel safe, which situations you avoid, and how stress, panic, sleep, trauma, or other factors may be involved.
Reduce catastrophic interpretation
Therapy can help you notice thoughts such as “I am permanently damaged” or “I am losing my mind” and respond with more flexibility rather than treating them as facts that require immediate proof.
Reduce monitoring and reassurance
You can practice stepping away from repeated symptom checks, online research, testing emotions, or asking other people to confirm that you seem normal.
Re-enter daily life
Treatment can help you return gradually to transit, work, stores, exercise, relationships, social settings, or other situations that became associated with feeling unreal.
The Merck Manual describes psychotherapy approaches that can include cognitive techniques, behavioral techniques, and grounding strategies for depersonalization/derealization disorder.
Grounding without turning it into another test
What if grounding does not make the feeling go away?
Grounding can help orient attention toward the present through sensory information, movement, surroundings, temperature, sound, or contact with the environment. But grounding does not have to erase DPDR instantly to be useful.
If you use grounding only to test “Did it work? Do I feel real now?” the exercise can become another form of symptom monitoring. Therapy can help shift the goal from forcing the sensation away to staying engaged with the present even when some unreality is still there.
“Stop making feeling normal the test.”
Progress may begin when you can notice, “I feel unreal right now,” and still continue a conversation, finish a task, ride the Metro, eat a meal, spend time with someone you love, or take another valued action.
The symptom may still matter. It simply does not have to be the only thing determining what you do next.
Work, Metro, relationships, and everyday functioning
How do you keep living when everything feels unreal?
DPDR can become especially disruptive when you start avoiding situations associated with feeling detached or dreamlike. Therapy can help you build confidence through gradual re-engagement rather than waiting to feel completely normal before participating in life.
Metro rides and busy streets
Movement, noise, lighting, crowds, and visual stimulation can become associated with derealization. Therapy can help you approach those settings more intentionally instead of letting fear make your world smaller.
Meetings and high-focus work
You may worry that feeling detached will make you unable to think clearly in a meeting, hearing, client call, classroom, or presentation. Therapy can help reduce monitoring and keep attention on the task in front of you.
Long screen days
Some people notice DPDR more when tired, visually overstimulated, or intensely monitoring their perception during long periods of screen-based work. The pattern varies and should be understood individually rather than treated as a universal cause.
Driving and safety
Whether it is safe to drive depends on your symptoms and level of impairment. If you feel too disoriented, visually impaired, panicked, or detached to drive safely, do not rely on reassurance from a webpage. Use another transportation option and seek appropriate clinical guidance.
Relationships and emotional distance
You may know you love someone while feeling emotionally far away from them in the moment. DPDR can create a sense of distance without meaning the relationship or your feelings are fake.
Parenting and caregiving
Feeling detached while caring for someone can bring guilt and fear. Therapy can help you stay engaged with the role without using the presence or absence of a particular feeling as the only measure of whether you care.
Recovery and symptom change
Can therapy make depersonalization go away?
Some people experience major symptom improvement or full recovery, while others improve because episodes become less frightening, less frequent, less central, or less disruptive. No therapist can guarantee exactly how quickly symptoms will change. Treatment can focus on reducing distress, avoidance, checking, and impairment while helping you live more fully as recovery unfolds.
Less checking
You spend less time testing your reflection, vision, emotions, memory, body, or surroundings to determine whether you feel normal.
Less fear of the sensation
A wave of unreality may still feel uncomfortable, but it no longer automatically becomes evidence that something catastrophic is happening.
Fewer avoided situations
You return to Metro rides, stores, meetings, exercise, dates, social events, or other parts of life that had become associated with symptoms.
Better concentration
Attention becomes less dominated by internal monitoring, making it easier to stay with conversations, work, reading, or tasks.
More emotional connection
You may feel more able to engage with relationships and meaningful activities without repeatedly testing whether the emotional response is strong enough.
More confidence living with uncertainty
You become less dependent on immediate reassurance and more able to let an unusual sensation be present without letting it dictate the rest of the day.
DPDR therapy in Washington, DC
DPDR therapy for adults managing work, school, and daily life in DC
In Washington, DC, many people continue performing under pressure while privately feeling detached or unreal. The symptoms may be invisible to colleagues, classmates, clients, patients, or family members.
Federal and policy work
You may be writing briefs, sitting through long meetings, responding to fast-moving events, or commuting through crowded environments while trying not to monitor every strange sensation.
Law and consulting
Client-facing work can create pressure to appear sharp and fully present even when your body or surroundings feel unreal.
Healthcare settings
Bright lights, long shifts, high responsibility, sleep disruption, and constant attention demands can feel especially challenging when you are already hyperaware of perception or body sensations.
College and graduate school
Classrooms, libraries, crowded campuses, exams, long screen days, and irregular sleep can become places where DPDR fear gets amplified.
Parenting and caregiving
You may worry that feeling detached means you are not emotionally present enough. Therapy can help separate the symptom from the value you place on the relationship.
Public transit and city stimulation
Metro platforms, escalators, crowds, traffic, bright offices, and busy streets can become triggers mainly because you fear the sensation returning there. Treatment can help reduce that learned association over time.
Finding the right therapist
What type of therapist treats depersonalization and derealization?
Free phone consultation
You can begin by describing what feels unreal, when it started, what you fear it means, and whether panic, stress, trauma, sleep, substances, or medical concerns may also be relevant. You do not need a formal DPDR diagnosis before reaching out.
A thoughtful match
We can discuss therapist fit, experience with depersonalization, derealization, dissociation, panic, anxiety, and trauma, as well as scheduling, fees, and whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid treatment may be appropriate.
DPDR-focused sessions
Therapy may focus on catastrophic interpretations, checking, reassurance seeking, panic, grounding, attention shifting, avoided situations, and reconnecting with work, relationships, and daily life.
DPDR therapist near you
In-person DPDR therapy in Dupont Circle
North Star Psychological Services offers outpatient DPDR therapy at 1350 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 203, Washington, DC 20036, directly south of Dupont Circle and near the Dupont Circle Metro.
If you are searching for a depersonalization therapist, derealization therapist, or DPDR therapist near you in Washington, DC, it can help to look for someone who understands both the unreal feeling itself and the fear, checking, panic, avoidance, and uncertainty that can keep it central.
We serve adults from Dupont Circle, Georgetown, Logan Circle, Adams Morgan, Foggy Bottom, West End, Kalorama, downtown DC, and nearby neighborhoods, with in-person, virtual, and hybrid therapy options depending on availability and eligibility.
Related DPDR resources
Related symptoms and treatment pages
DPDR can overlap with anxiety, panic, trauma, intrusive thoughts, emotional numbness, and other dissociative experiences. These North Star pages can help you explore the part of the pattern that feels most relevant.
Why do I zone out so much?
Explore the difference between ordinary attention drift, ADHD, anxiety, overload, and dissociation.
Feeling emotionally numb
Learn why emotional disconnection can happen with stress, depression, trauma, dissociation, or prolonged overload.
Functional freeze
Explore the experience of functioning outwardly while feeling stuck, shut down, numb, or disconnected inside.
Panic attack therapy
Learn about treatment when panic, body sensations, fear of losing control, or panic-related derealization are central.
Trauma and complex PTSD
Explore trauma treatment when dissociation, shutdown, hypervigilance, shame, or earlier overwhelming experiences are part of the picture.
Intrusive thoughts
Learn about treatment when repetitive fears, mental checking, reassurance seeking, or catastrophic interpretations are keeping attention locked on symptoms.
Questions about DPDR therapy
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a depersonalization therapist near me?
Look for a therapist who understands depersonalization, derealization, dissociation, panic, checking and reassurance loops, and the need to distinguish DPDR from other psychiatric or medical concerns. Practical fit matters too, including location, scheduling, fees, and whether you prefer in-person or virtual care. North Star offers in-person DPDR therapy near Dupont Circle and virtual options for eligible clients.
What type of therapist treats depersonalization?
A licensed mental-health clinician with experience treating depersonalization, derealization, dissociation, anxiety, panic, trauma, and related checking or avoidance patterns may be a good fit. The specific treatment plan should depend on what is contributing to the symptoms in your case rather than assuming one approach works for everyone.
Can therapy help derealization?
Therapy may help reduce the distress, fear, checking, avoidance, and self-monitoring that can make derealization more disruptive. Treatment can also address anxiety, panic, trauma, sleep disruption, or other concerns when they are part of the larger clinical picture.
Is DPDR caused by anxiety?
DPDR can occur alongside anxiety or panic, but anxiety is not the only possible factor. Trauma, chronic stress, depression, sleep disruption, substance use, medication changes, and other medical or psychiatric factors may also be relevant. A clinician can help assess the pattern rather than assuming one cause.
Is derealization the same as dissociation?
Derealization is a type of dissociative experience, but dissociation is a broader term. Dissociation can involve disruptions in awareness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, or connection with yourself and your surroundings. Derealization specifically refers to the environment feeling unreal, dreamlike, distant, or unfamiliar.
Does DPDR mean I am developing psychosis?
Not necessarily. In depersonalization-derealization disorder, people generally retain awareness that the unreal feeling is an experience rather than literally believing the world has changed. If you are experiencing hallucinations, strongly fixed beliefs, severe confusion, or a significant change in reality testing, professional assessment is important.
How long can depersonalization last?
Depersonalization can be brief, episodic, recurrent, or persistent. The course varies depending on the person and the broader clinical picture. Therapy can focus on reducing distress, avoidance, checking, and impairment without promising a specific timeline for symptom resolution.
Can trauma cause depersonalization?
Trauma can be associated with depersonalization or derealization for some people, but not everyone with DPDR has a major trauma history. Treatment should reflect your actual symptoms, history, and contributing factors rather than assuming trauma is always the cause.
Do I need a diagnosis before starting DPDR therapy?
No. You can start by describing what feels unreal or disconnected, when the symptoms began, what makes them better or worse, and how much they are affecting daily life. Therapy can begin with the symptoms and patterns you notice while the clinician helps determine whether additional diagnostic, medical, or psychiatric assessment may be useful.
How do I know if I need therapy for depersonalization or derealization?
You may benefit from therapy if feeling unreal, detached, dreamlike, or disconnected is causing distress, interfering with work or relationships, leading you to avoid parts of life, or causing repeated checking and reassurance seeking. You do not need to be in crisis to ask for help.
What is the difference between depersonalization and derealization?
Depersonalization refers more to feeling detached from yourself, your body, thoughts, emotions, voice, reflection, or sense of identity. Derealization refers more to your surroundings feeling dreamlike, artificial, distant, foggy, flat, or unreal. Many people experience both.
Does derealization mean I am going crazy?
Feeling unreal can be frightening, but depersonalization/derealization disorder typically involves awareness that the unreal feeling is an experience rather than proof that the external world has literally changed. If you are unsure what you are experiencing or reality testing has changed, professional assessment is important.
What is the difference between DPDR and psychosis?
In depersonalization/derealization disorder, reality testing is generally intact. A person may say, “I know this is my home, but it feels unreal.” Psychotic disorders can involve a more significant change in reality testing, such as hallucinations or strongly fixed beliefs. A full assessment is needed when the distinction is unclear.
Can depersonalization happen without trauma?
Yes. Trauma can be relevant for some people, but not everyone with DPDR identifies a major trauma history. Symptoms may occur alongside panic, anxiety, depression, chronic stress, sleep disruption, substance use, or other factors. Treatment should reflect the actual clinical picture rather than assuming one universal cause.
Can panic attacks cause derealization?
Derealization or depersonalization can occur during intense anxiety or panic. The strange sensation can then become a new focus of fear, which increases vigilance and may make the unreality feel stronger. Therapy can help interrupt that fear-monitoring cycle.
Why do I keep checking whether I feel real?
Checking can create brief reassurance, but it may also train attention to keep scanning for the symptom. Mirror checking, testing emotions, monitoring vision, Googling symptoms, or asking other people whether you seem normal can become part of a repeating fear-reassurance loop.
Can DPDR become permanent?
DPDR can be brief, recurrent, or persistent. Some people recover fully, while others experience symptoms for longer periods. Therapy focuses on reducing distress, checking, avoidance, and impairment while supporting recovery rather than making guarantees about exactly how quickly symptoms will disappear.
Can depersonalization come and go?
Yes. Depersonalization and derealization can occur in episodes, fluctuate in intensity, or become more persistent. Tracking patterns can be useful, but repeated monitoring of every sensation can also become part of the problem when it turns into reassurance seeking.
Why does my reflection feel unfamiliar?
Depersonalization can affect the felt sense of familiarity with your own face, voice, body, or reflection. You may intellectually recognize yourself while the emotional sense of familiarity feels muted or strange.
Why does everything look dreamlike or fake?
Derealization can make surroundings feel dreamlike, artificial, foggy, flat, unusually sharp, distant, or visually strange. Therapy can help reduce the fear attached to these perceptions and decrease the monitoring that keeps attention fixed on them.
Can I have DPDR and still function normally?
Yes. Some people continue working, studying, parenting, socializing, and maintaining responsibilities while feeling intensely detached or unreal inside. Outward functioning does not mean the symptoms are minor or that therapy could not help.
What if grounding does not make the feeling go away?
Grounding does not have to eliminate DPDR immediately to be useful. If grounding becomes a test of whether you feel normal, it can turn into more symptom monitoring. Therapy can help use grounding as a way to reconnect attention with the present rather than as proof that the symptom is gone.
Is there medication specifically for depersonalization/derealization disorder?
There is no medication with clearly established effectiveness specifically for depersonalization/derealization disorder. Medication may sometimes be used to treat co-occurring anxiety, depression, or other conditions. Medication decisions should be made with an appropriately qualified prescribing clinician.
Do I need a medical evaluation or brain scan?
DPDR is generally assessed clinically rather than diagnosed by one scan or test. Medical or neurological evaluation may be appropriate when symptoms are sudden, atypical, associated with head injury or seizure-like symptoms, or otherwise raise concern for another cause.
What if the symptoms started after cannabis or another substance?
If symptoms began after cannabis, another substance, medication changes, or withdrawal, it is important to discuss that history openly with a medical or mental-health professional. Therapy can address fear and avoidance, but substance-related or medication-related causes also need appropriate assessment.
Do you have therapists who work with DPDR in Washington, DC?
Yes. North Star provides outpatient therapy for depersonalization and derealization in Washington, DC. During a free consultation, we can discuss your symptoms, therapist fit, scheduling, fees, and whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid treatment may be appropriate.
Do you offer in-person DPDR therapy near Dupont Circle?
Yes. North Star offers outpatient depersonalization and derealization therapy at 1350 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 203, directly south of Dupont Circle and near the Dupont Circle Metro. Virtual and hybrid options may also be available for eligible clients.
How do I get started?
You can schedule a free consultation with North Star. We can discuss what has been happening, when symptoms started, therapist fit, scheduling, fees, in-person or virtual options, and whether DPDR-focused psychotherapy may be appropriate.
Start with a free consultation
Find a therapist who understands depersonalization and derealization
Tell us what feels unreal or disconnected, when the symptoms began, what you fear they mean, and what kind of support you are looking for. We can help match you with a North Star therapist based on your concerns, preferences, schedule, and current availability.