Psychosis and the challenges to narrative identity and the good life: Advances from research on the integrated model of metacognition

Abstract

Studying narrative identity has become a route to understanding alterations in subjective experience and compromises in quality of life or “the good life” in psychosis. In this paper we examine how research on deficits in metacognition in psychosis may help us understand one aspect of compromise in narrative identity, a lack of responsivity to experience. Specifically, we explore how metacognitive deficits may restrict awareness of {a} one’s and others’ purposes, {b} one’s sense of place in the world, and {c} the meaning of one’s actions. In turn, these restrictions compromise the evolution of narratives in response to experience, ultimately limiting access to features commonly associated with the good life.