Hi Lifelong learners, today we are discussing
the Rosenhan's battle of the Sane and the
Insane.
Do you trust psychologists?
How much do they really help people?
Meet David.
He was a professor of psychology and was concerned about mental health.
Specially that the professionals trying to
help could not tell the difference between
madness and sanity and if they could not tell
the difference, then how could they help?
David designed an experiment to test how well
they could tell the difference between the
sane and insane.
This became known as the famous Rosenhan Experiment.
He asked for volunteers and chose 7 people.
None of these people had any history of mental
illness.
These 7 volunteers were sent to 7 different
mental hospitals across American.
When they arrived they explained that they had started to hear noises several months
ago and recently the noises had changed to voices that said "Its Empty" "Nothing Inside"
"Its hollow".
All of them were admitted to hospital with
diagnose of either schizophrenia or bipolar.
After they were admitted they reverted to
acting normal and asked to be released.
They later described the experience as "Dehumanising" "No one talk to you, nobody makes contact".
On average they only have 6.5 mins with staff
members each day.
They also found that behaviour that looked
normal outside of hospital looked crazy inside
the hospital.
For instance, the volunteers all took detailed
notes of the experiment.
To begin with they hid their note taking activity,
but they soon realised that the staff did
not care.
The staff that did notice just listed it "Writing
Behaviour" and attributed it to their mental
illness.
The only people who did notice something strange
were the patients with mental illnesses.
They could see that the volunteers were different.
That they were not insane.
These people were better at diagnosing mental
illness than the so-called experts.
They said to the volunteers "What are you
here, you're not sick you're not crazy".
The volunteers were in hospital not for just
a few minutes or hours but for days and days
before they were allowed to leave.
On average, they were there for 19 days.
David himself was there for almost 2 months
before they allowed him to leave.
When the experts discharged the volunteersthey did not pronoun them cured or sane or healthy but
rather as in remission.
Schizophrenic in remission.
At no stage did any expert realise that this
was a test.
When David was finally released he compiled
all the notes and wrote a paper entitled "Being
Sane in Insane Places".
The public loved his work but the experts
were livid.
They threated him and claimed that he had
tricked them.
One large hospital challenged him to send
another group of volunteers to them as a test.
They were confident that they would be able
to diagnose sane vs. insane.
David agreed to the test.
At the end of the time period the hospital
proudly announced that of the 200 people attempting
admission they had identified all 40 of David's
volunteers but David, he hadn't sent anyone
to them!
They had shown again that they could not accurately
diagnose sane vs. insane.
David returned to teaching and sadly pass
away in 2012 but thanks to his work patient
doctor relationships were improved and they
rewrote the whole diagnosistic manual.
The whole field of psychology has greatly
improved since this experiment.
So, how much do you trust psychologists?
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