Email me at Mike Emery. All financial contributions are cheerfully accepted. If you want to keep it private, use my PGP Key. Home Page
David Rosenhan, a psychologist carried out an experiment, sending imposters to psychiatrists who then had them locked up in lunatic asylums. Some only managed to escape by claiming that they were real loons not liars. Real inmates often worked out that they were not genuine; the alleged experts did not.
In the second experiment he told one nut house he was going to feed them more phonies. They then said there were 41 imposters and another 42 were suspect out of 193 incomers. In fact none of them were. This is a failure rate of 21% on the most optimistic view and 43% on the least.
The lesson is that the alleged experts are nothing of the sort.
Rosenhan Experiment ex Wiki
QUOTE
For this experiment, Rosenhan used a well-known research and teaching hospital, whose staff had heard of the results of the initial study but claimed that similar errors could not be made at their institution. Rosenhan arranged with them that during a three month period, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission and the staff would rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood they were an impostor. Out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect. In reality, Rosenhan had sent no pseudopatients and all patients suspected as impostors by the hospital staff were genuine patients. This led to a conclusion that "any diagnostic process that lends itself too readily to massive errors of this sort cannot be a very reliable one". Studies by others found similarly problematic diagnostic results. The study concluded "It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals" and also illustrated the dangers of depersonalization and labelling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviors rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities.
UNQUOTE
A certificate of sanity is a very dubious thing to have. Using it might be thought a proof that it is wrong.
Errors & omissions,
broken links, cock ups, over-emphasis, malice [ real or imaginary ] or
whatever; if you find any I am open to comment.
Email me at Mike
Emery.
All financial contributions are cheerfully accepted. If you want to
keep it
private, use my PGP Key.
Home Page
Updated onSunday, 17 May 2015 08:31:24