Rosenhan decided to replicate his study using seven other men and women, all of whom were instructed to get themselves admitted to mental hospitals, telling the staff "that they heard voices that said, 'thud, empty, hollow.'" All of the volunteers except one reported being ignored or mistreated by staff and psychiatrists who diagnosed them quickly and without any real rigor.Ĭahalan interviews two of the "pseudopatients" and realizes that their stories don't quite match Rosenhan's claims. He looked distressed, worn out, somewhat older than before." Upon his return, one of his students recalled, "his mood hard darkened. She recounts the origin of the study, in which Rosenhan checked himself into a mental hospital and was appalled at the treatment of patients in the institution.
Haunted by the certainty that others with her disease were similarly misdiagnosed, and forced to languish in psychiatric institutions, she took an interest in Rosenhan's experiment - tracking down the late psychologist's notes and interviewing his surviving friends and colleagues. Eventually, a doctor realized she was suffering from anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a "great pretender" disease that mimics the symptoms of mental illness. As she recounted in her remarkable 2012 memoir, Brain on Fire, she became gravely ill as a young woman, and was admitted to a hospital where she was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Unfortunately, Cahalan claims, it was also likely fatally flawed.Ĭahalan's interest in the subject is intensely personal. As journalist Susannah Cahalan writes in her fascinating new book, The Great Pretender, Rosenhan's study had an outsized effect on psychiatry it was "cited to further movements as disparate as the biocentric model of mental illness, deinstitutionalization, anti-psychiatry, and the push for mental health patient rights." The study was undoubtedly influential. All of the "pseudopatients" were diagnosed with illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and remained in the hospitals for several days. "On Being Sane in Insane Places" was the result of a study in which eight people without mental illness got themselves admitted to psychiatric institutions - Rosenhan wanted to see whether mental health professionals could actually distinguish between psychologically well people and those with mental illnesses.
In 1973, psychologist and Stanford University professor David Rosenhan published a journal article that shook the world of psychiatry to its core. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Great Pretender Subtitle The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness Author Susannah Cahalan
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