Who’s Crazy Here, Anyway?
In this study conducted by D.L. Rosenhan, the following question is raised: are mental health professionals really able to tell who is mentally healthy and who is mentally ill? And what are the consequences of mistakes? To answer these questions, Rosenhan himself and eight other “pseudopatients” presented themselves at different psychological hospitals acting normally other than pretending to be hearing voices saying the same three words; all were admitted. The pseudopatients’ goal once they were admitted was to convince the staff that they were mentally healthy. The hospital staffs failed to detect the patients but interestingly enough, other patients knew pretty easily. While there was a severe lack of personal contact between staff and patients, there was no such lack of medications (the pseudopatients and many of the real patients flushed their pills down the toilet). One of the pseudopatients even noted that a nurse unbuttoned her uniform to adjust her bra in front of a dayroom of male patients; she wasn’t intending to be provocative, but simply did not view the patients as “real people”(Hock 2009).
Rosenhan’s study is critical to the world of psychology because it yielded two major results: 1) it appeared that the sane could not be distinguished from the “insane” and 2) it demonstrated the danger and damage diagnostic labels can cause. Rosenhan’s work caused extra care in diagnostic procedures to be taken and increased awareness of the harmful effects of labeling patients as well as a decrease in hospital populations, an increase in antipsychotic medications, and an increase in mental health facilities that focus on specific problems and tend to avoid labels(Hock 2009). In the study “Listen to My ...
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Mental illness has been around as long as people have been. However, the movement really started in the 19th century during industrialization. The Western countries saw an immense increase in the number and size of insane asylums, during what was known as “the great confinement” or the “asylum era” (Torrey, Stieber, Ezekiel, Wolfe, Sharfstein, Noble, Flynn Criminalizing the Seriously Mentally Ill). Laws were starting to be made to pressure authorities to face the people who were deemed insane by family members and hospital administrators. Because of the overpopulation in the institutions, treatment became more impersonal and had a complex mix of mental and social-economic problems. During this time the term “psychiatry” was identified as the medical specialty for the people who had the job as asylum superintendents. These superintendents assumed managerial roles in asylums for people who were considered “alienated” from society; people with less serious conditions wer...
Rosenhan’s article On Being Sane in Insane Places brings up many important aspects professionals in the mental health field, and society as a whole, need to consider when treating those who experience mental illness. One of the important key concepts of this article illustrates the difficulty of determining who is “sane” and who is “insane”. This article mentions that those who are diagnosed with a mental illness are not encouraged to fully recover, but rather live in remission and become labeled in a very permanent manner. This type of labeling leads institutions and the professional staff who work for these institutions to consciously and unconsciously distance themselves from the patients (or in some case behave abusively
We all have our own perception of psychiatric hospitals. Some people may see them as a terrifying experience, and others may see them as a way to help people who cannot keep their disorders under control. David Rosenhan's perception led him to a variety of questions. How could psychiatric hospitals know if a patient was insane or not? What is like to be a patient there? According to Rosenhans study, psychiatric hospitals have no way of truly knowing what patients are insane or not; they quickly jump to labeling and depersonalizing their patients instead of spending time with them to observe their personality.
Star,S.A.(1955). The public’s ideas about mental illness. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Mental Health.
Because of this, there has been a terrifying increase of the need of mental health professionals over the past 70 years. The article states that “the majority of patients in therapy do not warrant a psychiatric diagnosis” meaning problems that used to be considered normal or easy to handle are now being approached by such professionals.
Eldridge Cleaver….a black American essayist, editor, and public enemy number one in the mist of McCarthyism present in the days of the protest movement.
Once upon a time, long ago in the mists of time, sprawling brick structures housed countless individuals with mental disturbances. These massive structures were known to the world as mental asylums for the insane. In reality, the majorities of these individuals were not insane, but in contrast were suffering from mild mental problems such as depression or anxiety. These people were looked down upon in society and were labeled as "freaks" or "batty" because of their mental disorder. In the early twentieth century, mental issues were considered taboo. If a family had a sibling or relative who was suffering from a mental disorder, they were swept under a rug; to be taken care of at another time. These days, these immense structures are an object of the past, a bygone era. Many asylums still stand tall as monuments to the world of health care, while many do not stand at all.
Howard Gardner’s theory contains eight main multiple intelligence. As the years have progressed there have taken one out and is left with the main seven. These seven are: Linguistic, Mathematical, Spatial, bodily, Musical, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal. These are found in everyone; however, each person will excel in one or two. Once teachers can determine what intelligence the students will exceed on and teach to their strengths the student will learn much more.
In today’s society, the stigma around mental health has caused many people to fear seeking medical treatment for problems they are dealing with. With an abundance of hateful outlooks and stereotypical labels such as: crazy, psycho, and dangerous, it is clear that people with a mental illness have a genuine reason to avoid pursuing medical treatments. Along with mental health stigma, psychiatric facilities that patients with a mental health issue attend in order to receive treatment obtain an excessive amount of unfavorable stereotypes.
The Modified Labelling Theory, created by Link et al., (1989) hypothesized that individuals who were labeled as mentally ill, would manage the stigma they faced through three coping mechanisms; education, withdrawal and secrecy (as cited in Ray & Brooks Dollar, 2014). The Modified Labelling Theory is a credible theory that has been used to approach not only the repercussions of stigma in mental illness, but also to explain behaviours of those who smoke, live with HIV/AIDS, or have a child with a disability (Ray & Brooks Dollar,
As humans when we are faced with any psychological or emotional problems, our initial thought is to turn to a therapist, doctor or any other health practitioners. Our initial thought when we are faced with problems regarding our health is to turn to a health professional because for ages that’s how it has been. When it comes to our health, health professionals nowadays do more harm than help. Many might disagree, but often patients are misdiagnosed with mental illnesses they do not have. Misdiagnosis occurs when a therapist or other health practitioners decide that a patient is suffering from a condition that he or she may not be suffering with. When misdiagnosed, patients are given unnecessary treatment, which could potentially
Kaysen, Nash and Lozowski all had various symptoms of their disorders and at first all three did not associate those symptoms with a mental illness. Kaysen realized she had a variety of problems but she was not alarmed or overly concerned for her health or well-being. In regards to her symptoms, Kaysen (1994) states, “I was having a problem with patterns. …When I look at these things, I saw other things within them” (p.41) She went on to say “something also was happening to my perceptions of people” (Kaysen, 1994, p.41). She viewed these and other symptoms as “…my misfor...
Smith, M. K., (2002). Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences and education. Retrieved February 10, 2005, from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. In psychology, and all of the other sciences, relying on opinions is abandoned in order to find out which explanations best fit the evidence or data given. Science continually forces us to question our findings and conclusions. Over time, psychology has advanced greatly and a main reason for such progressiveness is because of the change in the research model used.
The study of IQ and how it operates in the education field has been argued through various theories. Theorist such as Howard Garner, R...