Schizophrenia and the relationship between insight depression and self-deception

Forty six individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were divided classified as having or high and low insight on the basis of their scores on the Scale for the Assessment of Unawareness of Mental Disorder. A comparison of the two groups showed that while they were demographically similar, the high insight group showed less defensive self-deception on the Balanced inventory of Desirable Responding and more depressive symptomatology on the Beck Depression Inventory and the Calgary Depression scale. The results were interpreted as supporting the view that self-deception is used as a defense by individuals with schizophrenia who have poor insight and this accounts for their lower levels of depressive symptomatology.