According to a recent study published in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, insight (illness awareness) may be a predictive variable in cognitive behavior therapy for psychosis (CBTp). In the current study, researchers assessed forty-four psychotic patients before and following a CBTp intervention. They discovered that insight correlated to improvements in psychotic symptoms among patients with auditory and visual hallucinations and ideas of reference. Insight did not correlate to other symptom types (e.g., paranoid delusions, mind reading, and thought insertion), however. These findings suggest that symptom type moderates the relationship between insight and outcome in CBTp and that CBTp may be particularly effective with certain patients with specific symptomatology.
Kuller, A.M., Libben, M.R., Rosmarin, D.H., & Björgvinsson T. (2012). Does symptom type moderate the relationship between insight and outcome in cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis? A preliminary investigation. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, 1-12. Doi: 10.1080/16506073.2012.676670