Self-Management in Psychiatry as Reducing Self-Illness Ambiguity

In this article, we argue that a crucial component of “self-management” as management of the self consists of reducing what John Sadler has called “self-illness ambiguity” (Sadler, 2007). The article seeks to supplement Sadler’s view on self-illness ambiguity in two ways. First, we zoom out of self-illness ambiguity and provide a philosophical analysis of self-ambiguity more generally. We will argue that ambiguity may arise both on the level of (unreflective) self-experience as well as on the level of (reflective) self-understanding. Acknowledging these levels and their interplay enables us to see how self-ambiguity might arise and how it might be reduced or even resolved. Second, we zoom in on self-illness ambiguity and elucidate some of the contextual, conceptual and epistemological obstacles that may arise when trying to reduce self-ambiguities in a psychiatric context (such as self-illness ambiguity).