ABSTRACT
The everyday-life consequences of anosognosia for hemiplegia and the cognitivist understanding of this phenomenon are presented. The psychological theories of anosognosia by Weinstein (Weinstein and Kahn, 1955), Solms (Kaplan-Solms and Solms, 2000) and Ramachandran (Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998) are also discussed – (1) anosognosia as a defence against self-image alteration, (2) anosognosia as repression, (3) anosognosia as a regression to primary narcissism. Indeed, from the observations presented earlier, it may be concluded that anosognosia for hemiplegia is not a neurotic refusal or non-acknowledgement of hemiplegia and does not result in maintaining the patient’s self-image at all. Instead, it is suggested that the undue presence of the object and the alteration of body image prevent normal cognitive activity.
