Medical ethicist, Guidry-Grimes has critically reviewed the concept of insight, voicing concerns that it lacks consensus as to its components and that it undermines patient perspectives. We respond by briefly summarising research over the last 30 years that she overlooks which has helped establish the clinical validity of the construct. This includes the adoption of standardised assessment tools—at least in research—and longitudinal and cross-sectional studies quantifying associations with psychopathological, clinical and cognitive measures. We also make the distinction between the current (...) standards for assessing decision-making capacity leading to, where appropriate, involuntary treatment in clinical and medico-legal settings which in most legislations do not include insight assessments, and anecdotal reports of the use and misuse of ‘lack of insight’ as a proxy for more comprehensive evaluation. We conclude by encouraging a broader view of insight akin to self-knowledge. (shrink)

Person centered care (PCC) invites ideas of shared responsibility as a direct result of its shared decision making (SDM) process. The intersection of PCC and psychiatric contexts brings about what I refer to as _the responsibility problem_, which seemingly arises when SDM is applied in psychiatric settings due to (1) patients’ potentially diminished capacities for responsibility, (2) tension prompted by professional reasons for and against sharing responsibility with patients, as well as (3) the responsibility/blame dilemma. This paper aims to do (...) away with the responsibility problem through arguing for a functional approach to mental illness, a blameless responsibility ascription to the person with mental illness, as well as a nuanced understanding of SDM as part of an emancipation-oriented PCC model. (shrink)