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The arrogance of insight?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rachel Perkins  and
Parimala Moodley
Rachel Perkins
Affiliation:
Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Springfield University Hospital
Parimala Moodley
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in Community Mental Health, Institute of Psychiatry and The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF
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People's beliefs about illness, distress and disability profoundly influence their experience of, and responses to, such problems. Medical anthropologists have long recognised the importance of explanatory models of physical illness and the impact of these on the provision and use of health services. Similarly, psychological models of physical illness and related behaviour stress the importance of the ways in which people conceptualise or understand their difficulties. These are central in determining emotional responses to illness, help-seeking and illness-related behaviours, attitudes towards and compliance with treatment. Eisenbruch (1990) argues that, “the culturally constructed ideas held by the patient about the cause and nature of disease” are as important in relation to mental distress and disturbance. Help-seeking behaviour, attitudes towards and compliance with treatment are of central concern in psychiatry and all of these are influenced by people's understandings of their difficulties. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which people conceptualise their mental distress.

Type
Forum
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , April 1993 , pp. 233 - 234
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

References

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Moodley, P. & Perkins, R. E. (1991b) Routes to psychiatric inpatient care in an Inner London Borough. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 26, 47–51.Google Scholar
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