Abstract

Self-knowledge is a difficult thing. Many have had the experience of knowing that a friend or partner is in a bad mood before she herself realizes it. Similarly, with mental illness it seems that a person may be sick without realizing it, or even while denying it outright. Anosognosia, the lack of awareness that one is mentally ill, is most visible in cases of dementia or brain damage, but recent insights in psychology have shown that healthy human beings too generally lack accurate introspective awareness in matters of our own well-being.1 Getting this right—whether or not someone is flourishing2 psychologically—is crucial in psychiatry, and self-report cannot always be relied upon.At the same time, many have been...