Rosenhan experiment

The main building of St. Elizabeths Hospital (1996), located in Washington, D.C., now part of the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was one of the sites of the Rosenhan experiment

The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was an experiment regarding the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. In the experiment, participants submitted themselves for evaluation at various psychiatric institutions and feigned hallucinations in order to be accepted, but acted normally from then onward. Each was diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and were given antipsychotic medication. The study was arranged by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 under the title "On Being Sane in Insane Places".[1][2]

It is considered[by whom?] an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis, and broached the topic of wrongful involuntary commitment.[3] The experiment is said to have "accelerated the movement to reform mental institutions and to deinstitutionalize as many mental patients as possible".[4] Rosenhan claimed that he, along with eight other people (five men and three women) entered 12 hospitals across five states along the west coast of the US. Three of the participants were admitted for only a short period of time, and in order to obtain sufficient documented experiences, they re-applied to additional institutions.

Respondents defended psychiatry against the experiment's conclusions, saying that as psychiatric diagnosis relies largely on the patient's report of their experiences, faking their presence no more demonstrates problems with psychiatric diagnosis than lying about other medical symptoms.[5] It has been alleged that at least part of the published results were distorted or falsified.[6][7]

  1. ^ Gaughwin, Peter (2011). "On Being Insane in Medico-Legal Places: The Importance of Taking a Complete History in Forensic Mental Health Assessment". Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. 12 (1): 298–310. doi:10.1375/pplt.12.2.298. S2CID 53771539.
  2. ^ Rosenhan, David (19 January 1973). "On being sane in insane places". Science. 179 (4070): 250–258. Bibcode:1973Sci...179..250R. doi:10.1126/science.179.4070.250. PMID 4683124. S2CID 146772269. Archived from the original on 17 November 2004.
  3. ^ Slater, Lauren (2004). Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-05095-5.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kornblum2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Spitzer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Scull, Andrew (3 February 2023). "Rosenhan revisited: Successful scientific fraud". History of Psychiatry. 34 (2): 180–195. doi:10.1177/0957154X221150878. PMID 36737877. S2CID 256577099.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Abb was invoked but never defined (see the help page).