Individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders often show a remarkable lack of awareness, both of their deficits and ofthe consequences the disease has on their lives. Poor insight is an important feature of psychoses since it is usually associated with low treatment adherence and poor outcome. Indeed, compliance might be considered to be the behavioral-external side ofthe internal-subjective perspective
of one's illness: inisight. Given that insight has important clinical consequences,
therapies to improve insight and compliance are essential for a comprehensive
therapeutic approach to schizophrenia, lt is the purpose of this article both to give a useful conceptual background for such therapeutic approaches in the future and to clarify clinical problems concerning compliance and insight in psychotic disorders.
While reviewing ways to increase insight and treatment adherence, its focus
is on the method of Motivational Interviewing.