The focus is on the intersubjective, narrative and dialogic aspects of the clinical phenomenon of insight in psychosis. By introducing a socio-dialogic model for the clinical production of insight, it can be learned how insight, as a form of self-knowledge , is a product of the clinical interview, namely the dialogic relation between patient and clinical interviewer. Drawing upon the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, expressly his notion of the ethical encounter, the production of insight in the clinical interview is elucidated (...) as both a synchronic and diachronic phenomenon—a provisional form of self-knowledge based on historically-produced frames of meaning which are recalled and narrated, i.e., produced at a specific moment in time. The production of insight, based on auto-biographical memory, is ultimately a processual and transactional phenomenon which arises out of the narrative construction of experience and the dialogic negotiation of the individual's "authored" experience. This process may be understood as a synergistic dynamic between intersubjective micro-processes and symbolic macro-processes , which may, when crystallized at the individual level, precipitate a subjectively insightful account of the prodromal illness experience. (shrink)

This paper is part of my journey with Emmanuel Levinas on a dystopic path to the ethical encounter. For the journey, I agree to be Levinas#39;s human subject, to encounter his quot;otherquot;. And he agrees to traverse a path through my world, a world of food and eating. To ready me for the encounter, Levinas tells me the story of his ethics, narratively , and so this paper is unavoidably #39;story#39; too. To preface, then: The ethical encounter is a quot;face (...) to facequot; encounter between a quot;humanquot; subject and an quot;otherquot; . In my encountering the other face to face in the world of food, food production and eating, Levinas tells the story of the violences of my existence- of my #39;eating#39; of the world at the expense of the other. Face to face with the other, I cannot avoid my responsibility for the needs and suffering of the other. In quot;proximityquot; with the other, I am guilty for eating; in proximity, I respond by giving the other quot;bread from [my] mouthquot; . In this first part of the journey, I am hungry, and Levinas leads me through scenes replete with food and eating. He shows me how this world can satiate my needs, but how it will, inevitably and inextricably, leave me, a not-yet ethical human subject, vulnerable and exposed. (shrink)