Talk:Rosenhan experiment/Archive 1

The non-existent impostor experiment
It says "...Rosenhan used a well-known research and teaching hospital...". Does anyone know what one? It seems like that'd be an important thing to include in that section Lyo 21:19, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Legal Issues
What does not seem to be mentioned anywhere is that Rosenhan is also an emeritus faculty member in law, and probably for good reason. Psychiatrists may be called upon to testify in legal proceedings, and the difference between a "sane" person and one who is "insane" is significant in a courtroom. For example, if a respected metaphysicist and award-winning social critic were deemed to be insane by testimony from multiple psychiatrists, there might be cause for that person to lose custody of their children, lose control of their bank accounts, etc. On the other hand, if a similarly respected psychiatrist were labeled insane by a well-known metaphysicist, that metaphysicist might sell some books and generate publicity, but she might find herself on the end of a lawsuit for slander and/or libel as well, I don't know.

The point here is that these distinctions go beyond semantics, and I agree that Postman's comments should also be deleted. This is not my wiki, but the fact that a casual observer can see these problems immediately does, in my humble opinion, detract from the credibility of the discussion and the value of Mr. Rosenhan's contributions.71.116.145.130 23:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * My interpretation of the above user's point is that because the actual social power coupled to the different semantic interpretations is not at all symmetric (absolutely true in general, as one would discover in a moment if you tried to make a "citizen's arrest" of a uniformed policeman) it is better as a practical matter that psychiatrists that have the power of legal committal (and other powers granted them by the legal system) should be put on the intellectual defensive by the Rosenhan Experiment rather than Rosenhan be put on the defensive. Maybe so.  Not all truths are socially beneficial. But the truth of Postman's central criticism -- that Rosenhan and his collaborators treat "an experiment as a semantic environment of unimpeachable legitimacy" -- remains.

137.82.188.68 19:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Except that the psychiatric profession voluntarily accepted the legitimacy of the results by altering its collective behavior after the experiment, rather than putting Rosenhan on the defensive and rebutting or neutralizing his conclusions. Have Postman's observations - "true" or not, "legitimate" or not, had similar effects on the profession even remotely comparable to that of Rosenhan's? Postman's central criticism may be true, but it is irrelevant and does not belong on this page, in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.116.150.89 (talk • contribs)


 * Your position is intellectually incoherent. It can't be the case that a serious argument that strikes at the heart of the conventional semantic interpretation of an experiment is irrelevant to the discussion of that experiment.  You might as well say that the last five minutes of a surprise-ending movie are irrelevant to the rest of the movie.  Charitably, you are confusing power-in-the-world with the thing-in-itself.  Also, it is the height of sociological naivety (or naivety about institutional psychology, if you prefer that term) to think that an entire profession would "alter its collective behaviour" on the basis of a single psychological experiment involving eight people! (Does the criminal justice system radically transform itself because of a few well-publicized mis-carriages of justice -- David Milgaard, Donald Marshall, Guy-Paul Morin here in Canada?) More sensibly, committing psychiatrists might have paid (and do pay) lip service to Rosenhan -- a rather different thing.  (See, e.g. Murray Edelman's Political Language: Words that succeed and policies that fail, 1977 on this general subject of lip service in politics.)

137.82.82.135 02:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

"Incisive" critique"
Despite my continued opposition to the inclusion of the Postman critique, I have elected to remove the word "incisive" from the introductory sentence to the excerpt and leave it be otherwise. The word "incisive" is inappropriately POV language for an encyclopedia. Unless a quoted source is calling it "incisive," leave out such descriptive terms. 216.193.173.189 07:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Apparently that request was too difficult for someone. Leave out "incisive." This article already has enough problems with people fighting over the Postman quote--don't escalate it over a single word. Yes, the rules apply to you, too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.193.173.189 (talk • contribs) 07:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The rationale given for the restoration is this:
 * "incisive" is a valid descriptive modifier ("quick and direct" as, e.g., opposed to "verbose") of the *nature* of the critique following.)
 * No. Incisive does mean quick and direct, but with the associated understanding of sharpness of intellect, which is a distinctly POV take on the quote. I will include some other appropriate modifier. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.193.173.189 (talk • contribs) 07:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Just to interject some actual facts here, incisive is defined as follows:
 * "impressively direct and decisive" (Merriam-Webster Online)
 * "expressing an idea or opinion in a clear and persuasive way" (Cambridge Dictionaries Online)
 * "quick and direct; intelligently analytical and concise" (Wiktionary)
 * For this most part, it is indeed used as a complimentary term, and so isn't really suitable for NPOV, although such a compliment may be expressed by a cited reliable source. Hope this helps. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Recently analysed in Adam Curtis' new documentary on BBC called The Trap Episode 1
The Trap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series) BBC Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/noise/?id=trap Adam Curtis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0979263/ Its now on google video too ...Smullaney 14:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Related Experiments
In the second paragraph of the related experiments section, there is some inconsistency. The text refers to a transcipt of a patient, but refers to multiple patients later in the sentence. Further, it isn't clear whether "them" refers to the patients or the doctors.

Iain marcuson 09:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal
There is a description of this experiment at On Being Sane in Insane Places. Another page with the exact same title, except for capitalization, already redirects here. Merging would involve either just blanking the On Being Sane in Insane Places page, which would be a shame to the people who worked on it, or finding some way to edit them together, and I don't know the field well enough to do it justice. Anyone else want to try? Thatcher131 04:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a wise move. --Davril2020 10:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal now void, executed by Tombrend, who does not feel like bothering to log in. You are quite welcome. -68.230.150.72

Is very interesting reading the old page, I kind of feel it should still exist because it had bits of information there which is not contained here. Anyway, I'll link to the last version of it for reference: On Being Sane in Insane Places Mathmo Talk 04:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * And it is great that you did that, now I've read it, and I'm motivated to (probably) go and merge all the excellent extra info from that older article into this one. Good job! :) Eaglizard 05:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Postman Part 2
I have removed Postman's section from the criticisms and pasted it below. As noted above, this was a psychiatric experiment, and a critique based upon general semantics does not seem relevant. Discuss if you want to include it again. 64.178.101.32 23:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Neil Postman provides an incisive critique of this experiment from the viewpoint of General Semantics in his book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk (pgs. 233-236, Delacorte Press, New York, 1976):
 * ... Dr. Rosenhan believes that his pseudopatients are "sane" because 1) they did not, in fact, hear any strange voices and 2) they claimed they did only as part of an "experiment." But from another and wider angle, the pseudopatients can be judged to be, if not insane, then at least very curious people.  Why, for example, would a "normal" person deliberately have himself committed to a mental hospital?  How many people do you know who would even contemplate such an act?  And if you knew someone who actually went through with it, you might think that a mental hospital is exactly where he belongs -- with or without strange voices.  But Dr. Rosenhan and his co-conspirators have legitimized the act -- have "sanified" it, if you will -- by calling it "an experiment."  To them, an experiment is a semantic environment of unimpeachable legitimacy -- which is to say, experimenters do not need to explain their behaviour.  Not only that, but Dr. Rosenhan wrote an article about his "experiment" which got published in a prestigious scientific journal.  And so, Dr. Rosenhan, his pseudopatients, and the editors of Science magazine think they are all quite sane, that patients who do hear voices are insane, and that the doctors who labeled the experimenters "schizophrenic" are unreliable.  I do not say that they are wrong. But it is just as reasonable to suppose that Dr. Rosenhan and his pseudopatients are strange and unreliable people themselves, and that the doctors in the mental hospitals were entirely competent and judicious.  What Science magazine should have done is published two articles -- one by Dr. Rosenhan about his experiment and another, from a broader perspective, about people who do such experiments and the various labels which might be used to evaluate their behaviour.  The first article would probably come under the heading of "psychology" (which Dr. Rosenhan is a professor of).  The second would come under the heading of "meta-semantics."  ... Neil Postman
 * Please tel me that this text came from this site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.181.52.41 (talk) 02:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Related experiments
There's a tag in the "related experiments" section. Google pulled up a reference to

M. Loring and B. Powell. "Gender, Race and DMS-III". Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1988), pp. 1–22.

I haven't checked this, but if someone would do so it could be added to the article.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:17, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Postman -- Again
When I first came across this page, I thought the Postman comment was far too lengthy and -- what's more -- really didn't address any issues of substance that form the crux of this article. I was therefore quite surprised to notice a whole debate had previously occurred over its appearance in the article.

The way I understand his (Postman's) critique of the experiment is that it boils down to "Well, maybe they're the ones who are crazy!" For example, Postman writes,


 * Why, for example, would a "normal" person deliberately have himself committed to a mental hospital?

The obvious reply is, of course, for the same reason that people like Postman choose to spend their whole lives in mental hospitals. Thus, questioning the sanity of people who have made findings that contradict your own beliefs -- even if you are a psychologist/psychiatrist -- is not the strongest of counterpoints. After having reviewed the numerous comments above, and failing to be convinced of the quote's value, I have removed it. I trust that if anyone disagrees with my assessment, they'll engage in dialogue here rather than simply restoring the page. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 04:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I can't take you remotely seriously as a disputant when you write something as inane as "... for the same reason that people like Postman choose to spend their whole lives in mental hospitals." It is part of the official policy of Wikipedia that Neil Postman's opinion -- as a serious and much-published/much-admired author -- outweighs that of random Wikipedia participants by a considerable margin.  I have discussed the objections to this quote previously in some detail with examples and references and you have raised no objection of substance.  You just don't like it.  Consider this an opportunity to learn something.  Read the whole book (Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk) from which this quote comes.   137.82.188.68 06:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * 137.82.188.68: It would be appreciated by me, as well as others on this page, if you would participate in editorial discussions civily. When I wrote "... for the same reason that people like Postman choose to spend their whole lives in mental hospitals.", I was referring to the fact that all involved professionally in the field of psychology/psychiatry are there because they want to attempt to advance our current understanding of the subject. Postman demonstrates, in the quote that is now being disputed', that he is less serious about this advancement than others, namely Rosenhan, and making thinly veiled attacks on those who participated in Rosenhan's study (to the effect of "maybe you're all crazy too!") is not a valid criticism of the study, and it is on those grounds that I oppose the inclusion of that quote in this article. Maybe Postman has a lot of good things to say, but this quote, in my humble opinion, is not one of them.


 * I don't think that's an "inane" position, and I don't think you make a very convincing response to the concerns I've raised by using that kind of language.-- Todeswalzer | Talk 19:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I misread your statement, but it was easy to misread. And your caricature -- "maybe you're all crazy too" is an entirely misleading reading of Postman's quote,  which poses the eminently reasonable question, "Do Rosenhan and his collaborators get a free pass for their behaviour because they have wrapped it in the semantic legitimacy blanket of an experiment?"  You have not spoken to the intellectual point of Postman's quote, only to what you regard as the social utility of Rosenhan's criticism of psychiatric diagnoses versus Postman's semantic/role-structure criticism of Rosenhan's experiment.  And as I wrote before, it might indeed be more socially beneficial that psychiatrists with the legal power of committal be put on the intellectual defensive by Rosenhan than that they be encouraged to dismiss Rosenhan with the aid of Postman's criticism.  (As Richard Bandler and John Grinder say about one tenet of their self-help psychology -- that everything is under your control, "We don't say this is true.  We say you'd be better off if you believed it was true.")  As a related (actual) example, there is a perfectly good reason as a practical matter to resist the introduction of a forensic psychiatric category called Police-Assisted-Suicide (a person waves a gun around or otherwise behaves erratically with the intention of provoking the police to shoot him) even if you believe that it might be a valid semantic category for a few cases, because you don't want to make it easier for the police to justify shooting people.  Regards, 137.82.188.68 06:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The Postman paragraph, consistently re-added by an anonymous user, is really unnecessary and I have removed it. It is a single person's view, on a somewhat oblique topic. Why should we privilege such a large section of the article to one analysis that I have never seen mentioned anywhere else in the extensive literature about this experiment? If Postman's critique has been discussed anywhere else, please reference it so we can see it's influence outside its own domain. - Vaughan 07:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Anonymous 137.82.188.68: Allow me to be more expansive concerning my problem with having Postman's quote on this page. To begin with, the excerpt you have chosen begins with, as I mentioned above, an essentially ad hominem attack against Rosenhan's pseudopatients. He writes,


 * Dr. Rosenhan believes that his pseudopatients are "sane" because 1) they did not, in fact, hear any strange voices and 2) they claimed they did only as part of an "experiment." But from another and wider angle, the pseudopatients can be judged to be, if not insane, then at least very curious people. How many people do you know who would even contemplate such an act? And if you knew someone who actually went through with it, you might think that a mental hospital is exactly where he belongs ...


 * Dr. Rosenhan didn't merely assume that his pseudopatients were sane; quite the contrary -- he selected them according to psychiatry's own criteria for "sanity". That is, he chose pseudopatients who had no past histories of "mental disorders". Postman disregards this, and instead attacks the people themselves, saying that they would have to be crazy -- or at least "if not insane, then ... very curious" for willingly committing themselves to a mental hospital. I would probably agree with this, if there was no other purpose to their behaviour than to get committed to a mental hospital. The reason is, of course, that the end was scientific research, and in this light their behaviour is entirely rational, i.e. "sane".


 * Postman then concludes that


 * ... it is just as reasonable to suppose that Dr. Rosenhan and his pseudopatients are strange and unreliable people themselves, and that the doctors in the mental hospitals were entirely competent and judicious.


 * This is not a fair conclusion, because, as I mentioned above, Rosenhan's experiment didn't seek to measure the practice of psychiatry according to an outside standard -- if this were the case, then I would probably be much more likely to agree that Postman has made a valid criticism. But because the experiment itself measured psychiatry on its own terms, the criticism being levelled by Postman is not justified. It is for this very reason that your own question -- "Do Rosenhan and his collaborators get a free pass for their behaviour because they have wrapped it in the semantic legitimacy blanket of an experiment?" -- really has no bearing on the matter. Rosenhan's experiment is entitled to a degree of legitimacy because it followed a very explicit methodology in order to get to its conclusions: something that, as the experiment itself demonstrates, psychiatry as a profession is lacking.


 * Also, as Vaughan pointed out above, the the Postman excerpt is far too long, and that length isn't justified by the substance of Postman's remarks. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 01:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply to those who would delete Postman excerpt
The excerpt from Neil Postman (a widely published and respected social critic and cultural commentator, rather more so than the anonymous people who would delete this excerpt) is 1) lucid 2) civilized and 3) offers (but does not insist on) an alternative interpretation which exposes the hidden or implicit assumptions of the Rosenhan experiment. It is not trivial or frivolous.  It is not a casual or unconsidered opinion by Postman; it is based on his knowledge of the power of social role structures.  I had known of the Rosenhan experiment for twenty years, but when I read Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk (which I highly recommend for the possibility of some genuine enlightenment) some ten years ago I thought - "hmmm... I never thought of it that way.  But he has a definite point."   142.103.168.16 04:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Knock off the ad hominem attacks; they are not helpful. The Rosenhan experiment was an exercise in psychiatry, not semantics, and the article reflects almost exclusively a concern for how the experiment affected psychiatrists and the psychiatric community. That's not to say that that's how the article has to be; that's just how it is right now. If you would like for the Postman excerpt to be relevant, then you or someone else should put some context into the article so that the reader understands from whence he is making the statement. Otherwise, its insertion is confusing and does not add anything. There you go. 64.178.101.32 23:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not convinced there's any reason to include philosophical conjecture, by a media analyst writing in an out-of-print book, in an article about scientific testing of science-based medical practice. (It might very well make a useful addition to the article about Postman himself.) I have removed the discussion of Postman's "incisive critique" again. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Again, the Postman excerpt is a serious, relevant, important intellectual critique (there is more context given in the book itself, but I believe the excerpt is enough to make the essential point) by a well-respected critic. I agree that its insertion is "confusing" -- "confusing" in the sense that it challenges the whole dominant "frame" of interpretation of the experiment -- WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT of the excerpt, which should make its relevance and importance to this entry self-evident. I do not believe that the deletors are acting in intellectual good faith.  Delete it again, and I will take the issue to adjudication.  There is much that can be said about the relation of psychiatry to general semantics -- you could start with Wendell Johnson's classic People in Quandaries: the semantics of personal adjustment (1946, still in print) but I do not believe that I have to write this essay (an interesting essay, to be sure) to justify the inclusion of the Postman excerpt. 137.82.188.68 21:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I realize you're not convinced. I doubt you ever will be. I have again removed the Postman text. Do what you feel is necessary. (We probably could use additional input.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No, I won't be convinced -- because you're wrong (that the Postman excerpt should be deleted, not that you are required to agree with it) -- is that impossible? I looked at the contact Wikipedia business for edit wars and it looked rather tiresome (I mean in the number of steps required, call for comment, discussion, mediation, arbitration as a last resort.)  If you are familiar with this process, could you do it?  That is, call for comment or get a few other people's opinions?  I believe the asymmetry in effort would be suitable given that you want to delete information from an encyclopedia entry.  137.82.188.68 00:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * We're interested in putting relevant information in an encyclopedia entry; sometimes that means adding and sometimes that means deleting. Your explanation above does not suffice; that is, an excerpt or quote does not create its own context. Explain why Postman's critique is important, or I will, or remove the quote entirely. You must have some valid rationale for including it beyond "the reason for its inclusion is self-evident from the excerpt."64.178.101.32 06:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I agree that in general an excerpt or quote does not create its own context, but a sufficiently lengthy quotation does provide the context for the point being made, and I believe that I have done this -- provided enough Postman, that is. The important point being made is the possibility -- by no means fanciful -- of challenging or even reversing the conventional semantic interpretation of the Rosenhan Experiment. I can't say it better than Postman, which is why I typed the excerpt in, but here are a few related points:


 * The excerpt is at the end of the entry, as it should be -- that is, the entry puts the conventional argument on the table first, and the challenge comes at the end. I'm not trying to interfere in the middle of the discussion.


 * This criticism doesn't come out of nowhere; I note the lifetime work of dissident psychiatrist Thomas Szasz on the historical and social construction of mental illness, and a 1995 book by psychologist Paula J. Caplan They Say You're Crazy : how the world's most powerful psychiatrists decide who's normal on the politics of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).  Those that have read Szasz (I have) might protest that his work might be seen more as support for the dominant interpretation of the Rosenhan Experiment.  But the Postman quote is about a challenge to the semantic incontestability of psychology "experiments" and this pattern is very much along the lines of Szasz in examining the semantic fluidity of psychiatric diagnoses.  What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.


 * Here is my own semantic analysis example, along the lines of Postman's excerpt: There is claimed to be a medical condition called Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) afflicting schoolchildren (mostly male) in the U.S. and Canada and treated with Ritalin, an amphetamine. To an excellent first approximation there can be no such condition if you are coercing someone's attendance -- that is, they want to be somewhere else and doing something else and you won't let them leave.  Why are the children suffering from ADHD instead of the teacher suffering from BTS (Boring Teacher Syndrome)?  It is a pure mystification of social control.  If adults leave a public performance (either a lecture or theatrical performance) in droves -- either in boredom or disgust -- then they are not stopped at the door and drugged to remain, the judgement is against the performer(s), not the audience.

Again, I really believe there is genuine wisdom available from Postman's Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk and I recommend doubters consult their library or used book store (or abebooks.com or alibris.com) for a copy. I wrote Postman before his death asking him to get this book back in print. 142.103.168.15 02:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't make any edits, being an anonymous user and all, but I object to the use of the word "incisive" when describing Postman's critique. In fact, I object to the inclusion of Postman's critique in general, but if you're going to include it, please remove words like "incisive," as it displays a clear lack of neutrality. It is hardly consensus that Postman is making any kind of valid and "incisive" point. 02:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Even children who don't go to school are sometimes diagnosed with ADHD. Sometimes students with excellent teachers are. Sometimes students with boring teachers aren't. 76.115.59.36 (talk) 02:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Point of view dispute
Although I found this article quite thought provoking and down right interesting, I find it one sided. The final paragraph ends attempts to correct this, but it fails, ending abruptly. I think we can do better. I would like to see it expanded and edited to ensure a more neutral tone so that it will be useful for people on both sides of the fence.

Bloupikkewyn (talk) 12:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)


 * well, there aren't a lot of good defences to be found. That one defence is also pish because the correct analogy is that some one who claims to be coughing up blood but doesn't comes to a doctor. And then the doctor's just kick that person out. I might be biased as I'm a 'survivor of psychiatry' but psychiatry is in the end quackery and still not proven to be effective at all. I'm even surprised the guidelines on medical standards here allow for it. But that's the principe of if most people believe a lie, it becomes the truth. I'll see if I can find some thing though. In any case, one psychiatric hospital did defend themselves, and challenged the other party to refute their defence, and so Rosenhan did. Rajakhr (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC).


 * The problem I have with most of the so called anti-psichiatrist articles in my view is that they are based on very old sources, i.e. from the 1970's. Research has moved on. Usually when someone makes a controversial claim, researchers jump on it to either prove or disprove it. With such an exciting claim, I am sure there are plenty of new articles abound. After a short pubmed search I found a few from "The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease • Volume 193, Number 11, November 2005" It contains a few official rebuttals and an actual new study entitled Rosenhan Revisited "The Scientific Credibility of Lauren Slater’s Pseudopatient Diagnosis Study". I have access to them and will review them and get back to you. Try and find a few new ones that support it though. I am sure there must be. I will be looking. I like the central Rosenhan idea: If you want to discredit Psychiatry, do it on its own terms. A lie soon crumbles under close scrutiny. Bloupikkewyn (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The very first paragraph of this article sets up a neutrality problem by saying "Hospital staff failed to detect a fake patient." They failed in nothing. Particularly at this point in time. The patient told them they heard voices in their head. There is no test (obviously) that can confirm this. They were admitted based on their own claims. How is this "failing" to detect? 76.112.192.64 (talk) 14:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That's the point of psychiatry and the criticism on it, that it has no better tool than a patient's claims. Would you trust your body's well being to a doctor that just listens to what you say, but does no single test with any objective apparatus? I wouldn't, if I go to a doctor and say 'Hmm, I have a pain here and it feels like this.' and the doctor from that concludes 'Cancer, treatment shall commence immediately.'? It's a fundamental flaw and it's the very reason psychiatry is a pseudo-science, until some machine is invented to objectively look into another person's mind and not rely on what that person tells you, psychiatry shall not be a serious medical discipline. Especially so as many psychiatric conditions seem to include that a patient is lying or 'deluding the self' (what-ever that means). The criticism is sound, it's a criticism on the fact that a discipline that relies on such absurd and unreliable and outdated methods of gathering information has legal sanction and authority. Rajakhr (talk) 19:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I deleted the Postman garbage
It's nonsense, propounded by a member of a nonsense pseudoscientific group. After deleting it, I saw the discussion below, but I don't care to waste my time arguing with fools. If you have a vote on this, consider this a vote in favor of removing that section. 128.12.186.193 03:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

the part which states that some of the particpants of the rosenhan experiment had to agree than they were not pseudopatients and had to undergo treatment is not true. They were all released within 3 weeks after Rosenhan had to prove it was an experiment and get them out. 81.152.110.180 (talk) 13:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Would this be enough to include as a reference?
http://blog.nihilarchitect.net/archives/257/robert/

I mean, I wrote it myself and all, I know Wikipedia frowns but at some cases tolerates using non peer-reviewed publications as sources. But I think the argument is valid and I also think that Robert's argument here is essentially for the reasons there a very bad one. It's no analogy, the patients namely never faked any symptoms in the experiment, that was the whole idea, they just said that they had a symptom that was never there, it's about that psychiatry has no means to test for such symptoms except asking you. Which is hardly medical professionalism in my opinion. Rajakhr (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, this doesn't cut the mustard. Please see the policy on WP:rs. Blogs are usually off limits. — Zujine |talk 15:28, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The other policy item to look at is that on original research. — Zujine |talk 15:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Genuine patients might not be genuine.
I changed two occurrances of the phrase "genuine patients" into the more general "ordinary patients". A "genuine patient" sounds to me like someone who is certainly mentally ill. But if Rosenhan is on the right track here, there might be several people in the hospitals who are not at all mentally ill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.126.207.212 (talk) 04:28, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

suggest change to "illustrated the dangers of depersonalization"
what exactly is meant by "depersonalization" in this context"? "depersonalization" is itself a psychiatric diagnosis, but does not seem to be intended here. Is this confusing? English is not my first language so hope someone else can look at this och possibly change to make this clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.180.9.6 (talk) 12:18, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

They were not treated as people once they were institutionalized. They were considered "crazies" to the point where doctors were unable to see that they were regular, sane people. Universalss (talk) 03:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

More deeply, P.Zimbardo (Stanford prison experiment) offten joins depersonalisation with acts of arresting or he generally places this unity in all platforms of domination. When someone's labeling people, it can be easily conjectured with some slave-master relation. Just as Universalss told - you start loosing your personality, when being widely counted as (some)thing, broadly speaking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Konikula (talk • contribs) 20:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It's "dehumanization", not "depersonalization". --Lilyology (talk) 14:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Typo - Pseudopatient diagnoses
".... '11' were diagnosed with schizophrenia at public hospitals, and one with manic-depressive psychosis, a more optimistic diagnosis with better clinical outcomes, at the private hospital" There were only eight participants - 7 were diagnosed with schizophrenia, one with manic-depressive psychosis.

//Fix it? — Zujine |talk 03:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The pseudopatient experiment
I don't know the correct numbers, but there is a discrepancy in 'The pseudopatient experiment.' It states that Rosenhan and eight others participated (making 9 total participants), then goes on to explain that 11 were diagnosed with schizophrenia and one with manic depressive psychosis. Either there were 9 people or 12 people, can't be both. Someone more familiar with the topic than I should fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.48.206 (talk) 19:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

1972 or 1973?
So it seems as though there is a bit of confusion as to whether or not this experiment was conducted in 1972 or 1973. The article says that it was conducted in 1973, but it is also listed in the "1972 in Science" category. Seeing as how the article was first published in January of 1973, it seems highly unlikely that the experiment was conducted after 1972.

144.118.162.27 (talk) 21:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I corrected a little the information, though I do not know the exact date when the experiment was conducted.--Psychiatrick (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Roman psychiatrist?
The mention of the play Menaechmus notes a psychiatrist in 200 BC. This seems dubious, but I am no scholar on this period, nor on the play.--BooksXYZ (talk) 10:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The play Menaechmi by Plautus (c. 254–184 BC) is not an experiment. So the mention of the play can be removed from the section "Related experiments" of the article "Rosenhan experiment". In addition, there was no psychiatry in the Roman Empire during those centures. --Psychiatrick (talk) 15:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Rosenhan experiment. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120612095206/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsqKCQDgmA&gl=US&hl=en to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAsqKCQDgmA
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100702104558/http://www.spotlightradio.net:80/listen/how-mad-are-you/ to http://www.spotlightradio.net/listen/how-mad-are-you/

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