1. https://sci-hub.red/10.1038/d41586-019-03268-y
2. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/13/777172316/the-great-pretender...
The Rosenhan Experiment: On Being Sane in Insane Places - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785783 - Nov 2025 (1 comment)
On Being Sane in Insane Places (1973) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32686098 - Sept 2022 (2 comments)
David Rosenhan’s fraudulent Thud experiment set back psychiatry for decades - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22155529 - Jan 2020 (119 comments)
Troubling discrepancies in Rosenhan's “On Being Sane in Insane Places”? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21437852 - Nov 2019 (16 comments)
On being sane in insane places - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10885181 - Jan 2016 (1 comment)
On being sane in insane places - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4371212 - Aug 2012 (2 comments)
Rosenhan experiment (1973) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1469370 - June 2010 (2 comments)
SIGECAPS is an acronym taught in US medicine for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder: Sleep disturbance, Interest loss, Guilt, Energy loss, Concentration loss, Appetite changes, Psychomotor agitation, Suicidality. And must have Depressed mood or Anhedonia (inability to enjoy things previously enjoyable).
The history of the SIG E CAPS acronym is also interesting, I've heard it was short for SIG (old shorthand for "to be prescribed") Energy CAPsules.
It doesn't really matter how "objective" your standard is if you're still relying on individuals to try to "address" whatever the patient is reporting. People still form a negative opinion and label you really quickly no matter how hard the profession fights that perception.
Our child also got stuck in the canal during birth and there was a good 30 seconds where the midwife from the hospital was trying to encourage to doctor who was to step in to let here keep trying, my kid came out white and took the longest 30-60 seconds to take their first breath. Never experienced so much dunning-kurger all at once. I had read a few week before that about medical professionals talking about how ominous a quiet birth it and was just zoned out as that was exactly what happened and I could sense all the tension. Then people from children services start demanding umbilical cord because my fiance had failed for MJ on her first prenatal vist, she quit smoking as soon as we knew and never failed a test after wards. But it all felt like an extreme lack of compassion. Then I was ostracised because I didnt want to cut the cord while I just thought my kid was dead and these social workers are trying to insert themselves in the process and its all chaos for no reason. The only good thing was a nurse pretty much told them to fuck off and wait in a nice but check yourself kinda way.
But multiple times people cared about their own ego, or their perceived power than actually attempt to do a compassionate job.
In the hospital environment, power is partly conveyed by the clothes people where and if you do not conform or obey, then you are punished. It is a pattern we are conditioned into from nursery/kindergarten onwards.
Authority provides the illusion of a sense of control, predictability, certainty and orderliness, and it's like we gravitate toward that even when it leads to bad outcomes for us.
For most of us the fear of being out of control seems to be greater than the fear of being controlled.
People today worship the white lab coat and the military/police uniform in the same way their ancestors honoured witch doctors/shamans and the tribe's warriors. They assume the former groups will dish out good advice and the latter will protect them. The general public experiences this in hospitals and schools, with psychiatric hospitals being the most extreme version of hierarchy. I've mentioned that I currently have two friends who are stuck in a mental hospital, and I have told both of them that they need to be respectful of staff if they want to get out sooner. The woman seems to have had her day passes revoked, and been placed on a more secure ward, after being cheeky to staff. Maybe the staff were awful but she isn't in much of a position to negotiate — she's been in there for nine months. (I've heard rumours of one of the other patients being sexually assaulted by staff, but thanks to the nature of these places I don't know whether it is fantasy or a real crime, since the supposed victim is doped up to the eyeballs much of the time and would not remember it properly.)
For the most part, you care the most about your circle, so if that isn't representative of the whole of society, it sounds like somebody else's problem. Who said all research needed to be perfect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_citation_advantage
Full Text On the Net = FUTON.
I remember reading an essay explaining that patients not sharing the political beliefs of the physician running the asylum are more likely to be classified as mentally ill. A mental asylum paid by state money is usually going to be in the hand of physicians who never see anything wrong with the state (not biting the hand that feeds you and all that): so when for example a libertarian arrives, he's much more likely to be classified as mentally ill than if a socialist arrives.
So it's all arbitrary and, moreover, you better put the odds on your side by trying to determine what are the physicians' political beliefs and pretend you have the same ; )
The chapter on 'Thud' ended with her visiting a psychiatric hospital of good reputation with an emergency room, she basically said the same things as the researchers in the paper. She was given some anti-psychotics and sent away.
But that confirms the main point of the experiment, which was that people who didn't need psychiatric treatment were given it anyway.
It's only of secondary importance that the prescribed treatment changed from hospitalization in 1973 to drugs by 2004. The primary point is that there was no objective way to determine who genuinely needed treatment. She didn't, but was diagnosed anyway.
This objection is so obvious that she must have addressed it in the book. Do you remember if she did?
https://spectator.com/article/how-a-fraudulent-experiment-se...
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46860103.)
