ROSENHAN EXPERIMENT - On being sane in insane places

The Rosenhan experiment was a famous experiment into the validity of psychiatric diagnosis conducted by David Rosenhan in 1972. It was published in the journal Science under the title "On being sane in insane places."

Rosenhan's study consisted of two parts. The first involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients," who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to many different psychiatric hospitals in several different states in various locations in the United States. The second involved asking staff at a psychiatric hospital to detect non-existent "fake" patients.

THE PSEUDOPATIENT EXPERIMENT
For the purposes of the study, eight "pseudopatients" (associates of Rosenhan selected to be a group of varied and healthy individuals) attempted to gain admission to psychiatric hospitals. During psychiatric assessment they claimed to be hearing voices that were often unclear, but which seemed to pronounce the words "hollow", "empty", and "thud." No other psychiatric symptoms were claimed, and apart from giving false names and employment details, further biographical details were truthfully reported. If admitted, the pseudopatients were asked to "act normally," report that they felt fine and no longer heard voices.

The pseudopatients were: a psychology graduate student in his twenties, three psychologists, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter and a housewife. None had a history of mental illness. If admitted, they were to act normally and not display any obvious psychopathology. Subjects were to remain as inpatients until they were discharged by the staff at their hospitals, who were not privy to the experiment and believed the subjects to be real psychiatric patients.

All eight were admitted, seven with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the last with manic-depression. Even after admission, none of the pseudopatients were identified as impostors by the hospital staff, although other psychiatric patients seemed to be able to correctly identify them as impostors. In the first three hospitalizations notes of remarks made by patients to pseudopatients were kept and 35 of the total of 118 patients expressed a suspicion that the pseudopatients were sane. All of the pseudopatients were discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia "in remission." Their stays ranged from 7 to 52 days and the average was 19 days.

Hospital notes indicated that staff interpreted much of the pseudopatient's behaviour in terms of mental illness. For example, one observer, apparently oblivious to the irony, labeled the note-taking of one pseudopatient as "writing behavior" and considered it pathological. In contrast, actual patients would accuse them of being researchers or journalists based entirely on the same writing behavior. Once admitted and diagnosed, the pseudopatients were not able to obtain their release until they agreed with the psychiatrists that they were mentally ill and took antipsychotic medications.

"I told friends, I told my family, 'I can get out when I can get out. That's all. I'll be there for a couple of days and I'll get out.' Nobody knew I'd be there for two months The only way out was to point out that they're [the psychiatrists were] correct. They had said I was insane, 'I am insane; but I am getting better.' That was an affirmation of their view of me." David Rosenhan in the BBC program "The Trap."[2]

THE NON-EXISTENT IMPOSTOR EXPERIMENT
For this experiment, Rosenhan used a well-known research and teaching hospital, whose staff had heard of the results of the initial study but claimed that similar errors could not be made at their institution. Rosenhan arranged with them that during a three month period, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission and the staff would rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood they were an impostor. Out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect.

In reality, ROSENHAN HAD SENT NO PSEUDOPATIENTS and ALL PATIENTS SUSPECTED AS IMPOSTORS BY THE HOSPITAL STAFF WERE GENUINE PATIENTS.

This led to the conclusion that "any diagnostic process that lends itself too readily to massive errors of this sort cannot be a very reliable one". Studies by others found similarly problematic diagnostic results

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[christl301]

Makes you wonder what happened to the 41 people who were turned away??

[WebOfEvidence]

I was treated as insane because I knew 9/11 was an inside job. Even though I presented them with evidence to show I was grounded in reality, they ignored it and forced me to take anti-psychotic medication. After 11 days, I got the Consumer Rights Advocate to force the chief psychiatrist to look at the evidence, as a professional should, and after about 15 minutes I was released.

I think they use labels of delusional and psychotic to manage their own discomfort with reality.

[ria416]

@WebOfEvidence, your story just goes to show how fucked up society is as a whole! bless you for going through that rubbish just for having the guts to be open-minded and not another media-driven drone. i also know that 9/11 was an inside job. scientifically there's just too much evidence to show a plane cannot break steel so quickly, even at that magnitude and force, it's just not possible. people need to think outside the box where they are not totally suppressed by standardised knowledge!

[2bobwanker]

@roottherm01 How many people have died in normal hosptials then?

[debiaptget]

Psychiatry nowadays is what medicine was in middle ages.

[roottherm01]

get rid of your need to be right

[roottherm01]

hospitals in general are DISEASED<DANGEROUS<DAMAGING now you have one thats run by a doctor of falsety. more people have died in mental institutions since 1967 than every soldier in EVERY war since 1776.

[theabomation]

Rosenhan experiment also showed how cold and indifferent most institutions are to there clients even when it was obvious that the three people were not mentally insane the doctors still did not listen...

[LitenFlicka]

Too true of psychiatry in general; hospitals, therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists.. Everything is viewed in relation to mental illness rather than objectively and everyone is medicated. Only way out or to be considered "progressing/improving" is being completely compliant with whatever medical staff thinks and medication, logical or not.