Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Part I Historical and Clinical
- 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: awareness and insight, an essential distinction?
- 9 Towards a structure of insight: the relationship between awareness and insight
- References
- Index
6 - The conceptualisation of insight
from Part II - Conceptual
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Part I Historical and Clinical
- 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: awareness and insight, an essential distinction?
- 9 Towards a structure of insight: the relationship between awareness and insight
- References
- Index
Summary
In order to start unravelling some of the problems engendered by the mixtures of terms and conceptualisations of insight apparent in the literature, it would make sense to approach a concept of insight in terms of its possible structure and components. For this purpose it is useful at this point to first of all make an explicit distinction between (1) the theoretical concept of insight and (2) the clinical phenomenon of insight.
The former refers to insight as a whole, to a construct whose structure and components can be theoretically defined. As such, it can accommodate the range of meanings of insight that have so far been offered albeit within a complex, multidimensional structure whose boundaries are wide and blurred. The latter, on the other hand, refers to the clinical manifestation (or elicitation) of what necessarily can only be an aspect of the concept of insight. In other words, the concept of insight is wider than the phenomenon of insight but it provides the scaffolding against which specific phenomena of insight can be delineated and understood. Making this distinction is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it helps to organise and clarify the various conceptual difficulties that are involved in the study of insight. Thus, it may help us to understand specifically where problems may lie and what type of problems we are dealing with.
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- Insight in Psychiatry , pp. 197 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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