ipl-logo

Summary Of The Great Pretender

746 Words3 Pages

In The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan, the author explores the history of psychiatry and the controversial Rosenhan study. The goal of this study was to expose the flaws of the field of psychiatry by sending in eight pseudopatients and reporting their experiences in the hospital. David Rosenhan’s report shows how easy it was for a normal person to get admitted to a psychiatric hospital, it also showed how hard it was to get out once there. Cahalan’s book makes us question the mental health system with Rosenhan's study; however as the book progresses, she starts to shift tone and makes us question the validity of Rosenhan's experiment, now making us question what we know about the field of psychiatry overall.
Cahalan begins the book by supporting the idea that …show more content…

From her experience with “madness,” she concluded that psychiatry was a naive field. Early in the book, she explains how society viewed mental illness in the past, saying it was demonic possession, where the treatment was to drill a hole in the patient’s skull. As the book advances, the author turns to David Rosenhan, a noted psychologist, and his study that included 8 normal people going undercover in different psychiatric facilities and claiming they heard empty, hollow voices in their heads, all of them were admitted, and most were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study showed how psychiatry did not know how to differentiate between the sane from the insane, it also uncovered the mistreatment that patients received when they were admitted and the conditions that the patients lived in. Rosenhan’s study created mistrust in the field of psychiatry with some people saying that patients are more likely to recover if they are not admitted to a facility. The author also explains other effects of Rosenhan’s study on psychiatry, there were reforms in the

Show More
Related

  • On Being Sane In Opening Skinner's Box, By Lauren Slater

    55 Words  | 1 Pages

    Has anyone else ever wondered how many sane people have been misdiagnosed or even committed to an institution unnecessarily? In chapter three; On Being Sane in Insane Places, in the novel Opening Skinners Box, Lauren Slater has written about experiments conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan in 1972 and again by herself sometime in the 2000’s.

    Read More

  • One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay

    1929 Words  | 8 Pages

    The Origins of Madness in One Who Flew Off The Cuckoo's Nest The book, One who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, is an eccentric story on the cruel treatment of patients within psychiatric wards in the 1960s. It is told from the narration of an indigenous man, named Chief Bromden, a character who is deeply conflicted and wounded inside, as he narrates the story of another patient McMurphy. McMurphy is not like Chief, nor any of the other patients for that matter, for he is a man who refuses to follow the wards rules and does whatever it takes in the book to strip the head nurse, Miss Ratched, of her power, in a fight for the patients, sovereignty within the ward. His rebellious attitude unfolds and the consequences begin unveiling

    Read More

  • What Are The Similarities Between One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest And Girl Interrupted

    2077 Words  | 9 Pages

    Dawes Leksi Ms. Lawrenson ENG4U 31 May 2018 Rebellion for Better or for Worse It is amazing how humans can subconsciously make connections between things all around them that allow them to have a better understanding of the life that they live in. Well known novels entitled: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey and Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, help the readers understand when both authors portray their similar views on how the system surrounding those suffering with mental illnesses works, in past and recent societies. Within these fictional novels are the ideas of how patients suffering with mental illnesses are mistreated.

    Read More

  • Was It Morally Correct For George To Kill Lennie

    1569 Words  | 7 Pages

    Many of the “patients” were sent to the institutions for varying reasons that did not require medical attention. This increased the patient to doctor ratio, and slowed other patient’s chances of getting the medical attention they needed, even if it was not truly helping their illness. The term mentally ill is defined as “continued display of unsound judgements and actions that do not fit into society’s values” (Swart) and “according the the Weschler Adult Scale III, mental retardation is at an IQ of 70” (“A Step”). “The Institutions were overcrowded with people who couldn’t really get better” (Payne). “Many of the patients got in because they weren’t wanted, they had phobias or panic attacks, or they were looking for a home” (Mental).

    Read More

  • The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding Of Madness By Susannah Cahalan

    570 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness by Susannah Cahalan details her experience of being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder before she is correctly diagnosed and treated for autoimmune encephalitis. Determined to help others that have been failed by our healthcare system, Cahalan investigates David Rosenhan’s 1973 study “On Being Sane in Insane Places” and sheds light on the evolution of the field of psychiatry. Cahalan’s reflections in her book have shifted my previous views about mental illness and caused me to further question the field of psychiatry. Cahalan’s experience with psychosis was traumatic and made her realize ways her body can and has broken down on her.

    Read More

  • Mental Illness In Flannery O Connor's A Rose Of

    1066 Words  | 5 Pages

    Mental illness is hard to understand. People that have mental illnesses do not make it easily noticeable. Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” are two stories that have underlying issues that are not present at first glance of the text. Miss Emily in “A Rose for Emily” and the Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” are characters that are more complex than how they are first presented. In their stories these two characters are constantly being gossiped about and are not being given the chance to be understood.

    Read More

  • Physical Treatment Of The Mentally Ill In Our Town By Thorton Wilder

    2229 Words  | 9 Pages

    Over the course of the past two decades, the public discussion of mental health has steadily gained precedence, attention, and support, allowing greater amounts of research and technology to receive funding. The shift in attention greatly juxtaposes the torturous methods used in the past. Just a century ago, in the early 1900s, horrible excruciating “therapy” methods were in regulation, and additionally mental health was often socially neglected or treated as devil possession or witchcraft. In Our Town, Thorton Wilder criticizes the social and physical mistreatment of mental illness of the early 1900s, and invites the reader to produce the improved mental health awareness and treatments that are present today.

    Read More

  • Misogyny In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

    413 Words  | 2 Pages

    So not only was a “crazy” person unlawfully trapped in a mental institution, they were also subjected to societies “humane” methods of therapy, “including drugs and shock therapy, to rehabilitate its patients” (Vitkus, 74). One of the methods formerly used to treat mental illness and stopped in 1947 was called Lobotomy, which means a surgical operation involving incision into the prefrontal lobe of the brain, which was described as “frontal-lob castration” because “if she can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above the eyes” (Kensey, 164). A Lobotomy, in the Combines eyes, is considered a permanent “fix” and deemed successful to returning those once insane back to the outside world of reality. Therefore, the social understanding and models of practices experienced in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest represents “a whole analogical system that serves, metaphorically, to define the inhumanity of a society that demands total conformity” (Vitkus,

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Research Paper

    1328 Words  | 6 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Paper In Ken Kesey's novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, there’s evidence that not everyone is there at their own will. The story is told through Chief Bromden in first person. He accepts that this paranoia and hallucinations provide metaphorical insight into the hospital ward and the actions the authorities are trying to pursue on the patients. Throughout the story, you begin to wonder who should be labeled a “sane” and who should be labeled “insane”.

    Read More

  • Opening Skinner's Box Analysis

    1267 Words  | 6 Pages

    They all would say that they were hearing a voice in their head that would say thud. On just that sentence alone they were sent to asylums and being diagnosed as schizophrenic or manic depressive. Rosenhan’s experience in the asylum, entailed that patients were not helped with their psychological disorders, let alone acknowledged at all. They were considered invisible. The nurses would turn their heads when patients would spit out their given medications.

    Read More

  • Control In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1085 Words  | 5 Pages

    Psychiatric hospitals are proven to provide assistance and treatment to those who live with mental illnesses. The system is designed to take away the suffering, assist in the patient’s recovery, and put them on the path toward good health and a happy life. Although hospitals are supposed to take a certain level of responsibility over a patient; in this ward, the control over the patients are clearly interfering with their well being. In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched’s suffocating authority and the ward’s power over the patients are exacerbating their illness instead of helping these patients heal, proving that them being mentally ill is a faux. Nurse Ratched controls the men with her therapeutic community.

    Read More

  • Yellow Wallpaper Sane

    611 Words  | 3 Pages

    What exactly defines one as “insane” versus “sane”, and where is the boundary between the two? Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores exactly that: the short story initially seems to be a tale of a 19th century woman forced into the notorious rest cure popularized at the time by male doctors--however, as the plot progresses, it becomes a much deeper commentary not only on societal limitations imposed on women, but also on the blurred line separating sanity from insanity. Gilman explores the boundary between sanity and insanity with the usage of different literary elements; she expresses how the boundary is “paper-thin” through the usage of symbolism, shows the subtle conversion to insanity by utilizing a stream of consciousness

    Read More

  • Theme Of Insanity In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1033 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the book “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” Ken Kesey shows that the “insanity” of the patients is really just normal insecurities and their label as insane by society is immoral. This appears in the book concerning Billy Bibbits problem with his mom, Harding's problems with his wife, and that the patients are in the ward

    Read More

  • Examples Of Injustice In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1099 Words  | 5 Pages

    When stepping inside a hospital to receive help, one should expect care, treatment, and respect. However, shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and “Howl,” American society equates mental illness with inhumanity. In both texts, the characters are forced to live without basic human freedoms and a voice to change it. Society pressures the mentally ill into becoming submissive counterparts of the community by stripping away their physical freedoms, forcing inhumane treatment, and depriving them the freedom of expression. By pressuring confinement and treating the patients inhumanely, society strips away their freedom to express themselves.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted

    1871 Words  | 8 Pages

    In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Susanna is told that she is mentally ill. They treat her for borderline personality disorder when she does not feel that she has any mental illness at all. When she arrives at the institution she feels as though she does not fit in as she does not see herself as crazy. In Kaysen’s memoir, she is being hyper-treated by the doctors and nurses

    Read More

More about Summary Of The Great Pretender

Open Document