Understanding psychological symptoms
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Meaning and Meaninglessness in Neuropsychiatry: Understanding Psychological Symptoms
IRAS ID
123514
Contact name
Norman Poole
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Institute of Psychiatry/ King's College London
Research summary
The research seeks to answer questions about how patients with unusual, sometimes bizarre, psychological symptoms can be understood by health professionals and the patient’s carers. It can be difficult to understand what a patient means when they claim, for example, to be dead. Some mental health professionals have argued that these symptoms can be understood in terms of the patient’s past experiences, culture, values, and prior beliefs. Others argue that they occur as a direct consequence of alteration in brain structure or function.
The proposed research involves in-depth interviews with patients who are known to be experiencing common neuropsychiatric symptoms – such as confabulation (describing fantastical events that did not happen), anosognosia (being unaware of significant neurological impairment) and so-called neurological delusions such as the delusion of reduplication (believing one’s spouse or even home has been replaced by an exact replica), and/ or a carer of someone with these symptoms.
The interviews will be conducted using the established methodology employed in Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which generates information-rich verbatim accounts of the phenomena in question. The purpose of the interview is to investigate how these experiences are understood by the patients and carers and whether and to what extent they can be considered meaningful communications.
REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1735
Date of REC Opinion
13 Jan 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion