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Troubling ‘insight’: power and possibilities in mental health care
Author(s) -
HAMILTON B.,
ROPER C.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1365-2850
pISSN - 1351-0126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2850.2006.00997.x
Subject(s) - punitive damages , mental health , perspective (graphical) , power (physics) , perception , psychology , engineering ethics , health care , quality (philosophy) , sociology , social psychology , epistemology , psychotherapist , political science , law , engineering , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , computer science
This paper critiques the conventional concept of ‘insight’ within the mental status assessment, seeking to unseat its taken‐for‐granted definition and the status it has acquired in research and practice. Drawing on social theory, consumer perspective and interdisciplinary research, the paper focuses on the impact of ‘thin’ biomedical understandings of insight, in disqualifying and demoralizing persons subjected to assessment and at the same time creating punitive scrutineers out of well‐intentioned practitioners. Nurses and their mental health colleagues are encouraged to reconsider their reliance on the concept of insight. We entertain the alternative idea that insight is a quality of perception that mental health practitioners can cultivate, to more deeply understand their work, culture and the self.