Troubling 'insight': power and possibilities in mental health care

Abstract

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.