Conscious compensations for thought insertion.

Thought insertion and other experiences of alien control have been explained as a source monitoring deficit, that results from a disconnection between a cognitive system for willed actions and a different system that monitors them. The case we present is a schizophrenic patient that in order to consciously avoid feeling his thoughts as not belonging to himself performs them as a motor act of speech. We suggest an interpretation for this conscious compensation following C. Frith's neuropsychological model of schizophrenia.