{"id":138582,"date":"2021-04-19T11:28:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T19:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=138582"},"modified":"2021-04-19T11:28:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T19:28:26","slug":"changing-psychiatrys-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=138582","title":{"rendered":"Changing Psychiatry\u2019s Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Gavin Francis writes in the New York Review of Books<\/a>:<\/p>\n

David Rosenhan\u2019s \u201cOn Being Sane in Insane Places,\u201d published in Science in 1973.<\/p>\n

Eight researchers, including Rosenhan, presented themselves at twelve psychiatric institutions, complaining that they were hearing indistinct voices, saying \u201cempty,\u201d \u201cthud,\u201d or \u201chollow\u201d\u2014terms chosen because they had not previously been reported in the literature. All said that they were undistressed by their \u201csymptoms,\u201d but all were admitted. \u201cImmediately upon admission to the psychiatric ward,\u201d reported Rosenhan, \u201cthe pseudopatient ceased simulating any symptoms of abnormality.\u201d Eleven of the twelve episodes of admission resulted in a diagnosis of schizophrenia and just one, having been admitted to an expensive private hospital, was given what was then considered a more upmarket diagnosis\u2014manic-depressive psychosis. All asked to be discharged as soon as they arrived on the ward, professing their symptoms gone, but their inpatient stays ranged from nine to fifty-two days (with nineteen days the average). When eventually discharged, the supposedly \u201cschizophrenic\u201d patients were told that their diagnoses were confirmed but that they were now \u201cin remission.\u201d (Aware of how sticky, consequential, and pejorative these labels can be, all had used pseudonyms.)<\/p>\n

Rosenhan\u2019s pseudopatients took notes throughout their hospital stays, recording clinician and attendant behavior, and clocking the time staff spent with patients. No clinicians asked to see these notes, or expressed any interest in them. Among the many scorching insights of the study was that the more elevated a clinician was within the hospital hierarchy, the less time he or she spent with patients. Abuse of patients in full view of other patients was routine, but stopped \u201cabruptly\u201d in the presence of other staff. (\u201cStaff are credible witnesses,\u201d Rosenhan wrote. \u201cPatients are not.\u201d) Rosenhan also concluded that fellow patients were better judges of sanity than clinicians. (\u201cYou\u2019re not crazy,\u201d he quotes one fellow patient as saying. \u201cYou\u2019re a journalist or a professor. You\u2019re checking up on the hospital.\u201d)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Gavin Francis writes in the New York Review of Books: David Rosenhan\u2019s \u201cOn Being Sane in Insane Places,\u201d published in Science in 1973. Eight researchers, including Rosenhan, presented themselves at twelve psychiatric institutions, complaining that they were hearing indistinct … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42877],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychiatry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138584,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138582\/revisions\/138584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}