Tag Archives: insane asylum

A couple of says ago I mentioned an experiment that was done in the 70’s (1973 to be exact) in which a small group of people was coached to act “crazy” in order to gain admittance into an insane asylum. Psychologist David Rosenhan published On Being Sane in Insane Places, in which he described his and eight other participants’ experiences in respective psych wards. None of these participants had a history of mental illness. Among those taking part in the experiment were psychologists, a grad student, and a pediatrician.

Once the patients were admitted into the ward (they all went into different types of hospitals with different types of funding), they no longer gave any sign of being mentally ill. There are several things about this article that are interesting.  Most of the participants were diagnosed with schizophrenia (at the public hospitals) and one with manic-depressive psychosis (at the private, better funded hospital, no less), a diagnosis which has a far more optimistic diagnosis, with better outcomes than schizophrenia, according to this article.

Once the participants were labeled as mentally ill, everything they did was attributed to their diagnosis. Rosenhan himself points out that “the perception of his circumstances was shaped entirely on his diagnosis” (on a particular patient’s normal family history, which was manipulated to aid in his diagnosis as schizophrenic.)  One bored participant was though to be nervous, simply because he was pacing the corridor. In a comical anecdote, Rosenhan describes a situation in which, “One psychiatrist pointed to a group of patients who were sitting outside the cafeteria entrance half an hour before lunchtime.  To a group of young residents he indicated that such behavior was characteristic of the oral-acquisitive nature of the syndrome.  It seemed not to occur to him that there were very few things to anticipate in a psychiatric hospital besides eating.” Although it’s easy to assume that this particular psychiatrist, who I’m sure was a learned and esteemed member of the psychiatric community, lacks any and all common sense, it’s easy to see how enshrouded a mental patient can become in his or her label. Rosenhan calls this section The Stickiness of Psychodiagnostic Labels, a title which is all too appropriate. Ironically enough, the only ones who were able to detect the patients as far from crazy, were other patients in the ward. Some of these voiced their suspicions from the get go, accusing the participants of being journalists or professors because of the constant note-taking. They weren’t far off.

Crazy?

On a side note, the study also brought attention to some very unorthodox practices, such as orderlies using excessive force with patients, patients regularly not taking their medication, and the incredible depersonalization that the patients went through on a daily basis. Such treatment would make anyone feel crazy.