Abstract

The development of self-knowledge or self-insight is a well-recognized therapeutic factor in psychotherapy. In some way or other, all evidence-based therapies seek to reframe and enrich patients’ own understanding of themselves. In this article, we focus on self-knowledge with respect to mental states, in particular those states that cause patients to seek treatment.As an example, imagine a person who enrolls in psychotherapy because he finds himself unable to commit himself to intimate relationships. During the first session, he tells his therapist about his youth, about how his father abandoned him and his mother when he was 8 years old. At one point he says, “I guess I’m...