COENESTHETIC AUTOSCOPY

   Also written as cenesthetic autoscopy. Both terms are indebted to the medical Latin noun coenes-thesis, which in turn comes from the Greek words koinos (communal) and aisthanesthai (to notice, to perceive). The term coenesthesis was used during the era of classic psychiatry to denote the 'common sensation' or 'common general sensibility' arising from the sum of all bodily sense impressions. (For a further explanation of the term coenesthesis, see the entry Coenesthetic hallucination.) The term autoscopie cénesthétique or coenesthetic autoscopy was introduced in 1903 by the French physician and psychologist Paul Auguste Sollier (1861-1933) to denote a phenomenon characterized by the * sensed presence of one's * double rather than its hallucinated presence. Thus individuals suffering from coenesthetic autoscopy have the intuitive feeling that a doppelgänger is present in their immediate surroundings. Sollier classified coen-esthetic autoscopy as a variant of *positive autoscopy. The notion ofcoenesthetic autoscopy should not be confused with the notions of *coenesthetic hallucination, *coenesthesiopathy, and * acenesthesia.

   References

   Sollier, P. (1903). Les phénomènes d'autoscopie. Paris: Félix Alcan.