Approximately 16% of all participants were classified as having illusory mental health, & scored significantly lower on scales indicative of interpersonal problems and structural personality dysfunctions

Patients with illusory mental health: A challenge for psychotherapeutic treatment and empirical research in psychotherapy. Carsten Spitzer, Oliver Masuhr, Ulrich Jaeger, Sebastian Euler. Psychotherapeut, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00278-018-0299-8

Abstract: There is practically no systematic knowledge about patients in psychotherapy, who have scores in the healthy range of symptom-related self-report questionnaires and thus are termed patients with illusory mental health. This explorative study involving 6585 psychotherapy inpatients analyzed the frequency in the total sample and whether or not they differ from patients with clinically relevant symptoms with respect to sociodemographic features, interpersonal problems and impairments of their personality structure. Approximately 16% of all participants were classified as having illusory mental health. These were numerically slightly younger than patients with relevant symptoms but other differences regarding sociodemographic characteristics did not emerge. Patients with illusory mental health scored significantly lower on scales indicative of interpersonal problems and structural personality dysfunctions. The diagnostic and therapeutic implications of these findings and associated challenges for empirical psychotherapeutic research are discussed.