Insight in Psychiatry

This book examines the clinical and theoretical problems of insight across a range of mental disorders.

Ivana Marková (Author)

9780521825184, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 October 2005

344 pages, 7 b/w illus. 19 tables
25.3 x 18 x 2.1 cm, 0.865 kg

'As an academic exercise, this is clearly a remarkable book. It grapples courageously with a number of vexed questions, and would certainly help anyone who wants to do empirical research in the area.' Journal of Mental Health

Questions concerning the nature of insight in patients with mental illness have interested clinicians for a long time. To what extent can patients understand disorders which affect their mental function? Does insight carry a prognostic value? Is impaired insight determined by the illness or are other factors important? Despite considerable research examining insight in patients with psychoses, non-psychotic disorders and chronic organic brain syndromes, results are inconclusive and insight remains a source of some mystification. Ivana S. Marková examines the problems involved in studying insight in patients with mental illness in order to provide a clearer understanding of the factors that determine its clinical manifestation. She puts forward a new model to illustrate the relationship between different components of insight in theoretical and clinical terms, and points to directions for future research.

Preface
Part I. Historical and Clinical: 1. Historical overview
2. The psychological perspective: gestalt, cognitive and psychoanalytic
3. Insight in clinical psychiatry: empirical studies
4. Insight in organic brain syndromes Section 1: Insight into neurological states
5. Insight in organic brain syndromes Section 2: Insight into dementia
Part II. Conceptual: 6. The conceptualisation of insight
7. The relational aspects of insight: the 'object' of insight assessment
8. Towards a structure of insight Section 1: Awareness and insight: an essential distinction?
9. Towards a structure of insight
Section 2: The relationship between awareness and insight
Index.

Subject Areas: Clinical psychology [MMJ], Psychiatry [MMH]