Insight and Psychosis
Insight and Psychosis
Oxford University Press | January 8, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0195084977 | 384 pages | PDF | 22.4 MB
Oxford University Press | January 8, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0195084977 | 384 pages | PDF | 22.4 MB
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.