Insane Places

On Being Sane in Insane Places (Rosenhan, 1973) shows how human bias affects a psychiatric diagnosis and the stigma of mental disorders. Even though established criteria for abnormal mental states exist, the diagnosis could vary depending on the professions, and their bias is applied on the diagnosis, especially at the “insane places.” Because of the characteristic of the place, the professions had a strong bias, so the psuedopatients could not be discharged easily although they presented normality. In addition, this diagnosis can negatively influence throughout one’s life as the stigma of mental disorder.

However, I believe psychiatric diagnosis could be advantageous in some ways. A number of research has been conducted on mental disorders and established certain criteria for them. The results

When this article published, the second edition of DSM was in use. I believe public awareness of mental disorder and its stigma have been improved, and DSM has been significantly developed to increase the validity of the criteria. Even though those are still not perfect, I thought the situation surrounding people with mental disorders might be way improved than the time. In that sense, the efforts made by mental health professions will play an important role to provide better environment for those with mental disorders. This article enlightened me the crucial role of a clinician who deals with one’s mental disorder from diagnosing to terminating treatment. The diagnosis of mental disorder is on the clinician’s discretion and it brings huge influence on one’s life. People has relied on DSM for diagnosis of mental disorders to provide treatments. Since the psychiatric diagnosis is regarded as necessary, its disadvantageous should be understood. Therefore, a clinician should be able to view clients in clinical perspective without prejudice and have an ability to catch their improvement or exaggeration in mental