Insight and Psychosis

The cornerstone of any psychiatric evaluation, the mental status exam, requires an assessment of insight -- a term commonly employed by clinicians to describe a patient''s awareness (or lack thereof) of having a mental disorder. However, the relationship between the accuracy of self-knowledge and mental health is complex, and as a result the term "insight" has become riddled with conceptual ambiguities. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to examine the nature and significance of insight. The first section introduces the issues and problems one is confronted with when attempting to gauge insight, and proposes solutions such as scales to make assessments. The second section investigates the origins of poor insight, while the third section examines cross-cultural differences in the awareness of and attitudes toward poor insight. The final sections explore the clinical implications of insight, including discussions on how insight affects behavior and examinations of advancements in the treatment of impaired insight. The volume presents recent advances in the study of insight from the perspectives of varied disciplines, including clinical and cognitive psychology, clinical and forensic psychiatry, neurology, neuropsychology, and philosophy, to provide a better understanding of the phenomenology, origins, cross-cultural differences, and clinical implications of insight.