Validation of the Psychological Insight Scale A new scale to assess psychological insight following a psychedelic experience.
As their name suggests, psychedelic (mind-revealing) compounds are thought to catalyse processes of psychological insight however, few satisfactory scales exist to sample this. This study sought to develop a new scale to measure psychological insight The PIS is a six- to seven-item questionnaire that enquires about psychological insight Principal components analysis of PIS scores revealed a principal component explaining 73.57% of the variance, which displayed high internal consistency at multiple timepoints throughout the study (average Cronbachs α 0.94). Criterion validity was confirmed using the global psychedelic survey study, and convergent validity was confirmed via the Therapeutic-Realizations Scale. Furthermore, PIS scores significantly mediated the relationship between emotional breakthrough and long-term well-being. The PIS is complementary to current subjective measures used in psychedelic studies, most of which are completed in relation to the acute experience. Insight - as measured by the PIS - was found to be a key mediator of long-term psychological outcomes following a psychedelic experience. Future research may investigate how insight varies throughout a psychedelic process, its underlying neurobiology and how it impacts behaviour and mental health.