I've noticed a relationship between clients gaining a significant awareness of Self and the world, and increasing existential crises.
That is, clients who have become very coherent in self-awareness- are "self-actualized" (to the largest extent), can appear severely distraught over their own inability to process a new trauma.
While that may be explained by psychological reframing or restructuring, how can we make sense of clients who steadily become more psychotic, or more unsettled as their self awareness grows? If the client is recieving the same quality care, how is it possible that the self-aware client suffers so much?
If anyone is researching this area, I'd love to connect.
There is an article from the 70s about how people who are more depressed also tend to be more accurate in their judgements.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/528910
This does not necessarily relate to the psychosis that you are discussing, but if you look at research that has sited this study, you might be able to track down awareness within other psychological conditions.
Super helpful @gregory
Lol. Yes, i think so! But that is why i think it seems important to research @tunc
There certainly is some folk-psychological support for a "yes" answer to your question, as evinced by the sayings "ignorance is bliss" and "alienation is the plight of the aware". The former is a commonplace, but I have been unable to find the latter in print. I first heard it from a Francophone student with an interest in Marxism and existential psychoanalysis and I think it may derive from a phrase in the French literature. Perhaps a Francophone researcher on RG can point you to some French sources.
So.. I spent an unnecessarily long time detailing the "insight paradox" which you refer to and the under recognized role of internalized stigma as a mediating factor. Then of course the browser crashed and my massive post disappeared haha. However, I will at least mention the importance of internalized stigma in your question, and point out the the definition of insight or awareness of illness is frequently debated. The current model is based in the biomedical perspective and takes a neo-Kraepelin approach with its emphasis on the degenerative nature, poor prognosis, and lack of effective treatment options outside of medication. Without even mentioning the unsupported conclusions and blatantly false limitations in describing an incredibly heterogenous disorder, the approach inherently promotes self stigma, which has a very large research basis supporting its negative impact on mental health. A study by Paul Becker looked at the "insight paradox" (increased insight results in increased depression) and found that this was only the case for individuals possessing high insight and high stigma, and not the case in participants with high insight and low stigma. (various other cross comparisons of those variable have been analyzed as well). Finally, social psychology provides some information on ways in which we may neutralize these negative effects. A number of approaches to recognition of stigma have been outlined, the most healthy of them termed "empowerment". In this approach, the individual recognizes the social stigma as a social injustice and take pride in accepting the label, exhibiting righteous pride for standing up against a social injustice. Okay. Hopefully this time my comment will post lol.
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