depersonalizing
Removing personal identity
Depersonalizing is treating someone as less than a full individual—stripping away their particular identity, humanity, or dignity.
Bureaucracies depersonalize by reducing people to numbers or cases.
The term also describes the psychological experience of feeling detached from oneself: The trauma left her depersonalizing for weeks afterward.
Excessively procedural
- standardizingEstablishing uniform criteria
- automatingMaking processes run themselves
- mechanizingMaking machine-operated
- commodifyingTreating as tradeable goods
anonymizing · homogenizing · processing · categorizing · labeling · reducing · abstracting · generalizing
Denying inherent worth
- objectifyingTreating people as things
- commodifyingTreating as tradeable goods
- exploitingUsing selfishly for benefit
- micromanagingExcessive control over details
surveilling · monitoring · scripting · uniforming · badging · numbering · replacing · outsourcing
Causing emotional separation
- estrangingCausing emotional separation
- distancingCreating space or separation
- detachingUnfastening from attachment
- disconnectingBreaking an established link
numbing · dissociating · withdrawing · isolating · dehumanizing · objectifying · disengaging · coldness
Destroying all microorganisms
- sanitizingEliminating harmful microorganisms
- proceduralFollowing set steps
- medicalOf healthcare practice
- psychiatricOf mental health treatment
diagnostic · therapeutic · clinical · treating · institutional · professional · systematic · methodical
bureaucratic
Excessively procedural
- standardizingEstablishing uniform criteria
- automatingMaking processes run themselves
- mechanizingMaking machine-operated
commodifying · anonymizing · homogenizing · processing · categorizing · labeling · reducing · abstracting · generalizing · mass-producing
dehumanizing
Denying inherent worth
- objectifyingTreating people as things
- commodifyingTreating as tradeable goods
- exploitingUsing selfishly for benefit
micromanaging · surveilling · monitoring · scripting · uniforming · badging · numbering · replacing · outsourcing · downsizing
alienating
Causing emotional separation
- estrangingCausing emotional separation
- distancingCreating space or separation
- detachingUnfastening from attachment
disconnecting · numbing · dissociating · withdrawing · isolating · dehumanizing · objectifying · disengaging · coldness · aloofness
sterilizing
Destroying all microorganisms
- sanitizingEliminating harmful microorganisms
- proceduralFollowing set steps
- medicalOf healthcare practice
psychiatric · diagnostic · therapeutic · clinical · treating · institutional · professional · systematic · methodical · protocol
depersonalizinghumanizing
Making more relatable
personalizing · dignifying · personifying · honoring · respecting
depersonalizingconnecting
Establishing a link
empathizing · engaging · bonding · befriending · nurturing
depersonalizingindividualizing
Making something personally distinct
personalizing · particularizing · differentiating · distinguishing · customizing
person, personal, personality, impersonal, personify, impersonate, personalize, depersonalization, depersonalize