Rosenhan Experiment

The Rosenhan experiment was an experiment conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis.

 

The experimenters feigned hallucinations to enter psychiatric hospitals, and acted normally afterwards.
They were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and were given antipsychotic drugs. The study was conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 under the title “On being sane in insane places”. It is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis.

Rosenhan’s study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates or “pseudopatients” (three women and five men, including Rosenhan himself) who briefly feigned auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had no longer experienced any additional hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and had to agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release. The average time that the patients spent in the hospital was 19 days. All but one were diagnosed with schizophrenia “in remission” before their release.

The second part of his study involved an offended hospital administration challenging Rosenhan to send pseudopatients to its facility, whom its staff would then detect. Rosenhan agreed and in the following weeks out of 193 new patients the staff identified 41 as potential pseudopatients, with 19 of these receiving suspicion from at least one psychiatrist and one other staff member. In fact, Rosenhan had sent no pseudopatients to the hospital.

While listening to a lecture by R. D. Laing, who was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, Rosenhan conceived of the experiment as a way to test the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. The study concluded “it is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals” and also illustrated the dangers of dehumanization and labelling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviours rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution, and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities.
– Wikipedia.

This is more updated than the old book I read about this experiment. It includes more facts and is more in depth.

I was thinking about the Rosenhan experiment and people being diagnosed with mental illness when there was nothing wrong with them.

I was wondering about the people who were tired of life, tired of competing, tired of trying to get things right according to others demands, tired of the working system and all is struggles, relationships, narcissistic people, etc, and these people just decide one day that they have had enough and deliberately said that they were insane or depressed or whatever.

Once labelled and diagnosed they didn’t have to work, compete, do things that they didn’t want to do. Food was prepared and given to them, paid for by others, and the electricity, phone, Internet and all other bills paid for by the state.

The Rosenhan experiment shows that the “experts” can make serious mistakes and commit people to treatment when there is nothing wrong with them. And the experts can keep telling the victim/patients that they are mentally ill, and that they have “problems”, while giving them medication that they do not need.

If the “patient” is admitted to a mental institution, and is labeled, then the rest is history.


All the best from
James M Sandbrook.

© Copyright. James Martin Sandbrook. Tokoroa, New Zealand.