Self-perception and self-awareness of mental patients as a psychological criterion of involuntary treatment efficacy

Abstract

Reviewed in the paper are peculiar features of self-awareness and dynamics of self-conception of patients undergoing involuntary treatment in a psychiatric hospital of the general type, the process of forming attitudes towards presence of psychic disorder and respective conceptual constructs, their role in rehabilitation work with patients. The data analysis shows that elimination of acute psychopathological symptoms alone, without special corrective work with patients during compulsory treatment aimed at promoting the process of self-awareness with acceptance of disease but preservation of personal identity, harmonization of self-attitudes and structuring of self-conception, does not allow one to reach the necessary starting point for effective readaptation. The authors state that an effective correction of self-attitudes with preservation of self-acceptance is possible with those patients who still retain “zones of personal growth”, whereas a gross distortion of self-esteem is a barrier for the functioning of the process of self-awareness. Harmonization of self-conception including the conceptual construct of the disease is an important criterion of success in treatment and corrective actions, a precondition for the patient’s integration into the system of social relationships after hospital discharge. Also discussed are social-psychological, situational and personal factors impacting the inverse dynamics of formed notions about one’s “new self”, which should be avoided in the process of readaptation.