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Experiment research paper psychology
The rosenhan experiment summary
Key psychological theories, including behavioural, psychodynamic and cognitive
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This chapter focuses on David Rosenhan and his experiment on determining if psychologists can correctly diagnose patients in a hospital setting(sane vs insane). Rosenhan was inspired to embark on this experiment after hearing from his friend that many soldiers tried to avoid the Vietnam War draft by faking mental illnesses. This experiment was centered around Rosenhan and how he recruited eight of his friends as pseudopatients to take part in this experiment in where the pseudopatients faked their way into a hospital during the month of October. Before the experiment, the pseudopatients practiced faking symptoms and pretending to consume medications. Furthermore, all of the pseudopatients possessed the same symptom of pretending to hear a voice in their head making a “thud” sound, but once they enter the hospital, the voice disappears. The voice for each of the pseudopatients matches the sex of the patients themselves. When Rosenhan went to the …show more content…
Many severe critics went after the weaknesses in Rosenhan’s experiment, such as Robert Spitzer. Spitzer argued that when a patient comes to the hospital with a set of symptoms, based on medical and diagnostic procedures, a doctor would most likely diagnose the patients based on those set of symptoms. One hospital attempted an experiment reversal and asked Rosenhan to send as many pseudopatients as he wanted to and the hospital believed that they could tell who was faking their symptoms. The hospital supposedly identified 41 pseudopatients, but Rosenhan did not end up sending any. The rest of the chapter was the author’s attempt at Rosenhan’s experiment. She conducted the experiment with all of the same symptoms that Rosenhan and the other pseudopatients “experienced”. When she went to the hospital, the doctor thought that Slater was suffering from PTSD or a form of psychosis based on her
Upon analyzing his experiment, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, concludes that people will drive to great lengths to obey orders given by a higher authority. The experiment, which included ordinary people delivering “shocks” to an unknown subject, has raised many questions in the psychological world. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California and one of Milgram’s colleagues, attacks Milgram’s ethics after he completes his experiment in her review. She deems Milgram as being unethical towards the subjects he uses for testing and claims that his experiment is irrelevant to obedience. In contrast, Ian Parker, a writer for New Yorker and Human Sciences, asserts Milgram’s experiments hold validity in the psychological world. While Baumrind focuses on Milgram’s ethics, Parker concentrates more on the reactions, both immediate and long-term, to his experiments.
"Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric "titanic"" PBS. WGBH Educational Foundation, 10 May 2005. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.
When and why do you think the subject in the experiment began to "second guess" himself?
Madness: A History, a film by the Films Media Group, is the final installment of a five part series, Kill or Cure: A History of Medical Treatment. It presents a history of the medical science community and it’s relationship with those who suffer from mental illness. The program uses original manuscripts, photos, testimonials, and video footage from medical archives, detailing the historical progression of doctors and scientists’ understanding and treatment of mental illness. The film compares and contrasts the techniques utilized today, with the methods of the past. The film offers an often grim and disturbing recounting of the road we’ve taken from madness to illness.
Although the title suggests a comical book, Oliver Sacks presents an entirely different look on the mentally challenged/disturbed. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a book that explains why a patient shows signs of losses, excesses, transports, and simplicity. Coincidentally, the book opens with its titling story, letting the reader explore the mind of an accomplish doctor who seems to have lost his true sight on life. In the following context, the seriousness of the stories and their interpretative breakdowns should only cause a better understanding of how the ever-so-questionable human mind truly works from a professional perspective put into simple words.
The human brain is a vast, unexplainable, and unpredictable organ. This is the way that many modern physicians view the mind. Imagine what physicians three hundred years ago understood about the way their patients thought. The treatment of the mentally ill in the eighteenth century was appalling. The understanding of mental illness was very small, but the animalistic treatment of patients was disgusting. William Hogarth depicts Bethlam, the largest mental illness hospital in Britain, in his 1733 painting The Madhouse1. The public’s view of mental illness was very poor and many people underestimated how mentally ill some patients were. The public and the doctors’ view on insanity was changing constantly, making it difficult to treat those who were hospitalized2. “Madhouses” became a dumping ground for people in society that could not be handled by the criminal justice system. People who refused to work, single mothers, and children who refused to follow orders were being sent to mental illness hospitals3. A lack of understanding was the main reason for the ineptness of the health system to deal with the mentally ill, but the treatment of the patients was cruel and inhumane. The British’s handling of mentally ill patients was in disarray.
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.
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
Blau, GL, H McGinley, and R Pasewark. “ Understanding the Use of the Insanity Defense. ”Journal of Clinical Psychology 49.3 (1993): 435-440. MEDLINE. 10 May. 2014.
In 2014 there was an estimated amount of people that were eighteen years or older, that were diagnosed with a mental illness, that number was forty three point six million people (National Institutes of Health). Although this story took place in a different time period this shows how present mental health is in our world. In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” there were an abundance of men that had a mental illness which caused them to be in a manipulated mental health system. While this group of men were different from the illnesses they had to how they acted. The men were all treated in a non humane way which caused them to be even worse from what they were. Therefore, most seemed to be sane enough to be out in the real world, but manipulation and treatments they had been given destroyed them as humans. Ken Kesey illustrates the theme of manipulation through the treatment of the patients by the staff in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Many of the patients would be much better off outside of the mental health system.
Starr , D. (2012, August 7). How people faking insanity give themselves away . Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science
The treatment of psychopathologies has spanned a wide spectrum of approaches ever since its inauguration as a field of study. From humanism to psychoanalysis, mental illnesses have been viewed from a plethora of perspectives and many have attempted to capture such treatment techniques through the medium of film. However, the degree to which these films accurately depict the treatments applicable to the time period in which the movies are set varies. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Girl, Interrupted (1999) are no exception to the aforementioned statement. Set in the early 1960’s and late 1960’s/early 1970’s respectively, these movies bear aspects of both resemblance and dissimilarity to the conditions and psychological and biological treatments commonly known to occur during their respective time periods.
History shows that signs of mental illness and abnormal behavior have been documented as far back as the early Greeks however, it was not viewed the same as it is today. The mentally ill were previously referred to as mad, insane, lunatics, or maniacs. W.B. Maher and B.A. Maher (1985) note how many of the terms use had roots in old English words that meant emotionally deranged, hurt, unhealthy, or diseased. Although early explanations were not accurate, the characteristics of the mentally ill have remained the same and these characteristics are used to diagnose disorders to date. Cultural norms have always been used to assess and define abnormal behavior. Currently, we have a decent understanding of the correlates and influences of mental illness. Although we do not have complete knowledge, psychopathologists have better resources, technology, and overall research skills than those in ancient times.
Mental illness, today we are surround by a broad array of types of mental illnesses and new discoveries in this field every day. Up till the mid 1800’s there was no speak of personality disorder, in fact there was only two type of mental illness recognized. Those two illnesses as defined by Dr. Sam Vaknin (2010), “”delirium” or “manial”- were depression (melancholy), psychoses, and delusions.” It was later in 1835 when J. C. Pritchard the British Physician working at Bristol Infirmary Hospital published his work titled “Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorder of the Mind” this opened the door to the world of personality disorder. There were many story and changes to his theories and mental illness and it was then when Henry Maudsley in 1885 put theses theories to work and applied to a patient. This form of mental illness has since grown into the many different types of personality disorder that we know today. Like the evolution of the illness itself there has been a significant change in the way this illness is diagnosed and treated.
Girl Interrupted is a film about a young woman, Susanna Kaysen, who voluntarily enters a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a portrayal of psychiatric care in the 1960’s. The film is based on the memoirs of Susanna Kaysen and her experiences during an 18 month stay at a mental institution. During her visit, Susanna is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The film depicts psychiatric care, diagnoses, and treatments from a different era.