4 ms·
This is an appropriate article to comment with the Rosenhan Experiment. From Wikipedia: The study involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients" who
by entropy128 9y ago
This is an appropriate article to comment with the Rosenhan Experiment. From Wikipedia: The study involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients" 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 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. [1]
This article also makes me think Wells Fargo-esque pressure from above is to blame, but won't be heavily punished by the authorities. At least in the WF case two executives had to pay back $75m. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/04/10/wells-fargo-knew-about-sham-accounts-problem-as-far-back-as-2002 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/04/10/w...
- DanBC 9y agoWhy is something that happened over forty years ago still relevant today? Literally everything about mental health treatment has changed.
- phkahler 9y agoThat's an interesting experiment, but what was the expected outcome? The deliberately feigned illness to get in and then reverted to completely normal. That's not a class of patient that is ever expected to show up. How would someone expect those cases to be handled and why?
- Doxin 9y agoYou'd at the very least expect medical experts to be able to identify non-ill people. That part of the experiment isn't the most damning though, The part where they told hospitals they'd repeat the experiment and then didn't is. Suddenly the hospitals managed to finger many of their patients as pseudopatients when in fact they weren't even part of the experiment. So yeah, a mental health industry that can't differentiate between sane and insane in either direction scares me.