Insight (psychotherapeutic process)

In psychotherapy insight is the gaining of increased awareness or experience of a persons mental condition, leading to a greater perception and understanding than was originally the case.

The term can apply equally to therapists gaining increased insight into the clients situation or condition as well as the client becoming more aware of their own difficulties.

Types of insight
Intelllectual insight is were there is an intellectual grasp of the issues but where there is a lack of emotional understanding to go with it. For example a client may understand that they are depressed because of the loss of a parent, but do not have the emotional insight that will allow them to grieve. Emotional insight brings with it a fuller response that is thought to facilitate therapeutic progress, for example catharsis.

Insight in Psychoanalytic theory
In psychoanalytic theory insight is prevented by the action of defence mechanisms such as denial repression and displacement. The process of therapy undermines their function and allows the ego, secondary processes and reality testing to develop a fresh perspective on the problem. For example a person may be in denial about their experience of sexual abuse by their father when a child. They may have repressed the memories and may be displacing their troubles onto memories of bullying in the playground. Therapy may facilitate the emergence of the original memory as an 'insight' which brings fresh understanding and leads to the possibility of therapeutic progress.

Insight in cognitive theory
In cognitive therapies

Papers

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