Background: Depersonalization has long been considered a syndrome but there is poor agreement on its constituent symptoms.
Method: In order to establish whether different symptoms of depersonalization represent the expression of a single or several underlying dimensions, an exploratory factor analysis on the Cambridge Depersonalization Scale (CDS) was carried out on 138 consecutive patients diagnosed with depersonalization disorder.
Results: Four well determined factors accounting for 73.3% of the variance were extracted. These were labelled 'Anomalous Body Experience'; 'Emotional Numbing'; 'Anomalous Subjective Recall' and 'Alienation from Surroundings'.
Conclusions: Symptoms of depersonalization belong to distinct but related psychopathological domains.