janekane (imported) wrote: Fri Dec 09, 2011 7:41 pm
On the other hand, David Rosenhan did a form of psychology experiment, which was reported in the January 19, 1973 issue of Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/179/4070/250
I here offer a counter-proposal, "To be sane in an insane world is the essence of sanity itself."
Another explanation of Rosenhan's work:
http://www.everythingispointless.com/20 ... world.html
Another classic psychology study. David Rosehan published his famous 'On being sane in insane places' in Science, in 1972. Rosehan was interested in the ability of psychiatrists to make a distinction between those with a mental illness and those who are 'normal'. Since it is a basic requirement that psychiatrists get this particular distinction correct, Rosenhan's work was very important.
He sent 8 normal people to 12 different hospitals, in 5 different states in the US. Each presented with the complaint of hearing voices and all eight were admitted to the hospitals as psychiatric patients. After admission, these pseudopatients acted as normally as possible and no longer reported the voices. From Rosenhan:
Despite their public show of sanity, the pseudopatients were never detected. Admitted, except in one case, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, each was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia in remission. The label in remission should in no way be dismissed as a formality, for at no time during any hospitalization had any question been raised about any pseudopatients simulation. Nor are there any indications in the hospital records that the pseudopatients status was suspect.
Rather, the evidence is strong that, once labeled schizophrenic, the pseudopatient was stuck with that label. If the pseudopatient was to be discharged, he must naturally be in remission; but he was not sane, nor, in the institutions view, had he ever been sane. The uniform failure to recognize sanity cannot be attributed to the quality of the hospitals, for, although there were considerable variations among them, several are considered excellent. Nor can it be alleged that there was simply not enough time to observe the pseudopatients. Length of hospitalization ranged from 7 to 52 days, with an average of 19 days.
So, Rosenhan found that when a normal person walked into a mental hospital claiming to hear voices, that they could spend up to 52 days being observed, despite exhibiting no further unusual behaviour. One of the strange findings of Rosehan's work is that despite the psychiatrists inability to discover the pseudopatients, the other patients were often quite good at realising that something was different about them:
It was quite common for the patients to detect the pseudopatients sanity. During the first three hospitalizations, when accurate counts were kept, 35 of a total of 118 patients on the admissions ward voiced their suspicions, some vigorously. Youre not crazy. Youre a journalist, or a professor (referring to the continual note-taking).
Finally, after the experiment had finished, a number of hospitals declared that such mistakes could not occur at their institutions. Rosehan set up a test with one hospital, whereby he would send further pseudopatients along and try and fool their psychiatrists into admitting more normal people. During that period, 193 patients were admitted, with 41 identified as pseudopatients with a high degree of confidence by at least one member of staff, 23 were suspected by at least one psychiatrist and 19 were considered possibly sane by one member of staff and one psychiatrist. Importantly Rosenhan had not sent a single pseudopatient to the hospital, during the three-months! Rosenhan concluded:[
......
Someday maybe I'll tell you the real story of the one eyed man in the land of the blind.
Transward
Yup!
- Forgive yourself. Justifiable response to provocation, + you are a moderator immune to peasant constraints. Like Jehovah's immune from the constraints on men. Just don't sacrifice pig.
