Being Sane In Insane Places Summary

Psychologist David Rosenhan came up with a study that proved the common misdiagnoses of mental illness. The study is called “Being Sane in Insane Places” and recorded the experiences of eight normal, sane people, who were admitted to psychiatric hospitals by saying that they were hearing voices in their heads like "thud, or dull". After they were admitted into the psychiatric hospital or "loony bin", they were instructed to act completely normal and to no longer report hearing voices or show any abnormal symptoms.

What occurred after they entered the hospital was shocking and very interesting. Every single person in the study was in fact admitted into the psychiatric hospital. Many of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia and given drugs. Despite the fact that the participants were acting completely normal after entry, they were treated with alienation and all of the actions that would be considered normal outside of the hospital, were actually taken as symptoms of their "psychiatric abnormalities". In fact, When one of the study participants was simply taking notes, it was inferred by the hospital staff as a schizophrenic writing behavior. …show more content…
The rosenhan experiment also showed that once a person has been given a diagnostic label there is not much they can do to reverse it. It's very interesting that even though the patients acted completely normal upon entering the psychiatric hospital, their illness stuck to everything they did or said. The doctors and staff saw every behavior as a sign of their supposed psychiatric abnormality, even though their behaviors would be considered normal, had they not been given that "sticky