ABSTRACT
Premack and Woodruff (1978) introduced the term theory of mind (TOM) to describe the ability to infer one's own and others' mental states. The process (or the demonstrated performance) of making such inferences may be referred to as `mentalizing' (Frith et al., 1991). TOM is a crucial aspect of metacognition underpinning meaningful social interaction. Frith (1992) ®rst proposed that TOM de®cits accompany schizophrenia and are central in explaining the symptoms. There is now substantial evidence of TOM impairment in people with schizophrenia (see Harrington et al., 2005), and resultant disruption of social functioning (see Schaub et al., this volume, Chapter 5), such that many people with schizophrenia cannot ful®l major social roles like marriage, parenting and work. The signi®cance of TOM for understanding and treating this social impairment is now recognized by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, Green et al., 2008) and clinicians (see Lysaker and Buck, this volume, Chapter 13, Hasson-Ohayon et al., Chapter 14). We consider assessment of TOM will soon become a regular part of formulating treatment plans for people with schizophrenia. This chapter provides an overview of current approaches to the assessment of TOM in schizophrenia (and related conditions) for clinicians and researchers not expert in TOM. We conclude with recommendations for a pragmatic yet informative TOM assessment protocol, while acknowledging the psychometric limitations of current tests. We hope this will stimulate interest in establishing increasingly robust ways of assessing TOM.
