Synonyms
Definition
Insight refers to the knowledge or awareness accompanied by an emotional response that occurs when an individual obtains conscious access to his or her unconscious emotional or cognitive wishes, desires, or conflicts. Insight includes the attainment of both cognitive and emotional understanding of one’s pathological symptoms and results in the reduction of these symptoms through a change in thought and behavior.
Introduction
The term insight originated from the field of psychiatry and was later extended into psychoanalytic theory by analysts such as S. Freud (Sandler et al. 1992). As a psychiatrist, S. Freud’s initial perception of insight was consistent with the medical interpretation of the term, in that it related to a patient being “cured” of his or her aversive symptoms (Freud 1895). Through his findings in Studies on Hysteria (1895), S. Freud observed that part of this “cure” and decrease in the patient’s hysterical...
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References
Freud, S. (1895). Studies on hysteria. Standard Edition, 2. London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1913/1958). On beginning the treatment: Further recommendations on the technique of psychoanalysis I. In Standard Edition, 12 (pp. 147–156). London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, A. (1936). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. New York: International Universities Press.
Hatcher, R. (1973). Insight and self-observation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 21, 377–398.
McWilliams, N. (2004). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A practitioner’s guide. New York: The Guilford Press.
Mitchell, S. A., & Black, M. J. (1995). Freud and beyond: A history of modern psychoanalytic thought. New York: Basic Books.
Reid, J. R., & Finesinger, J. E. (1952). The role of insight in psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychiatry, 108, 726–734.
Sandler, J., Dare, C., & Holder, A. (1992). Insight. In J. Sandler, C. Dare, & A. Holder (Eds.), The patient and the analyst: The basis of the psychoanalytic process (2nd ed., pp. 165–174). Madison: International Universities Press, Inc.
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Day, E., Stack, M. (2017). Insight. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_598-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_598-1
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