Psychopathology simulation: clinical expertise

Abstract

Each clinical act, whether strictly therapeutic or expert in nature, presupposes an assessment of the credibility of our interlocutor. This necessary and preliminary act becomes all the more important as our doing gets closer to the expert (professional) dimension. But simulating a mental illness or, on the contrary, pretending not to have problems when instead you are afflicted by a psychiatric condition, are all behaviors united by the fact that the subject who carries them out, reports a lie with respect to the real condition, with motivations and purposes that can be completely different. Clinical analysis is the only one that can demonstrate and discriminate the real disorder from those who are not. In light of this, the present work intends to highlight how the simulation of pathology in the expert field is a field that needs further study as it is complex and at the same time rich in phenomena that does not allow an easy solution and which necessarily require the examination of different levels.

Keywords

• clinical psychology, expertise, simulation.