Labels for you and me.
By, Stephen Ames
The importance of labels was memorably expressed
by R.D.Laing. He claimed that if someone labeled a scientist said
"All men are machines", he might receive a Nobel prize. In contrast,
if someone labeled a schizophrenic said "I am a machine", he would
promptly be locked away.
An attempt to evaluate the relative merits of these
two diametrically opposed positions, was made by David Rosenhan
of Stanford University.
David Rosenhan was extremely interested
in the various approaches that have been adopted towards the treatment
of psychiatric disorders. He wondered, is it really as simple to
distinguish between normality and abnormality as is implied by the
medical model?
Finally he came up with a way of trying to
determine how well psychiatrist are able to distinguish between
the normal and the abnormal, or between the sane and insane. What
would happen if a number of entirely sane people attempted to gain
admission to a mental hospital by pretending to have one of the
symptoms of insanity? Would they be classified insane ? If they
were admitted, would thestaff realize that a mistake had been made?
The answers to these and other questions were obtained
in a study in which eight normal people, five men and three women,
attempted to gain admission to twelve different psychiatric hospitals.
The twelve psychiatric hospitals were located in five different
states on the East and West coasts.
Each of the eight participants
phoned the hospital asking for an appointment. Upon arrival at the
admissions office, each of them complained of hearing voices (these
voices were often unclear, but appeared to be saying 'empty', 'hollow',
and 'thud'. All were judged to be insane, and all were admitted
to the hospital, on the basis of their symptom. One was diagnosed
as manic-depressive psychosis, the others as schizophrenic. But
as soon as they had been admitted the participants stopped simulating
signs of abnormality, although several had a brief period of nervousness
and anxiety because they felt they would immediately be exposed
as frauds.
While in the hospital, the participants indicated
that they felt well and were no longer troubled by 'voices'. In
general, they behaved in a friendly and cooperative way. The only
strange activity they engaged in was they spent time writing down
their observations about the ward they were in. To begin with, these
notes were written in secret, but it became clear that the staff
did not notice, so the note-taking was done quite openly. This,
in my humble opinion, was accomplished because most people who work
on a psychiatric ward (This is from personal experience) are some
of the lowest functioning people in society. Their main concern
is control of your thoughts and emotions. They seem to enjoy overpowering
you to the point of the destruction of your mental faculties. What
they can not accomplish with torture and punishment, they accomplish
through pharmaceuticals. If you resist the taking of the pharmaceuticals,
you will be held down and be given them by either injection or enema.
The structure of the various hospitals was such
that those of the greatest professional status had the least to
do with their patients. The average daily contact of the participants
was about 6 minutes. The actual length of hospitalization ranged
from 7 to 52 days.
The fact that all the participants were
released within a few weeks would make you think that the psychiatric
staff discovered that they had been sane all the time, but no. All
of the participants were discharged with a diagnosis of 'schizophrenia
in remission.'
Quite a number of the real patients did become
suspicious about the participants. The first three participants
were placed in wards with a total of 118 patients, 35 of the patients
voiced their doubts that the participants were mentally ill. They
said things like 'You're a journalist, or a professor. You're checking
up on the hospital.'
These findings suggest that the distinction
between the sane and insane is so blurred that psychiatrists constantly
diagnose the sane for the insane. It is ironic that over 30 percent
of the real patients knew that the participants were sane. As a
matter of fact the participants, after insisting that they were
ill to the real bona-fide patients, the real patients still didn't
buy it and insisted that the participants were sane.
Rosenhan wondered whether he could show the opposite
effect, the insane being sane. He chose as his testing ground a
research and teaching hospital. The staff there had heard about
the previous experiment and informed Rosenhan that they would not
be fooled.
The first thing Rosenhan did was inform the hospital
staff at this hospital that he was going to send in one or more
pseudo-patients and have them attempt to gain admission into the
psychiatric ward during the following three months. Each member
of the staff was asked to observe all patients who presented themselves
for admission or in the ward and say whether they thought they were
his pseudo-patients or genuine patients.
Judgments were made on a total of 193 patients admitted
for psychiatric treatment. Forty-one genuine patients were judged
to be his pseudo-patients by at least one member of the staff. Nineteen
patients were suspected of being frauds by one of the psychiatrists
and another member of the staff. But the fact is, none of Rosenhan's
pseudo-patients sought admittance during this time. The people that
were judged to be impostors were in fact real patients. The staff
did not know the difference. This proves that mental hospital staff
do know that they are admitting people, diagnosing them mentally
ill, prescribing them dangerous pharmaceuticals, even forcing them
to ingest the pharmaceuticals when they know quite well that the
people are sane.
Rosenhan's conclusion was: 'It's clear that we cannot
distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals'.
One of the other points made by Rosenhan concerned
the degrading conditions experienced by his pseudo-patients during
their stays in the Psychiatric Wards. Rosenhan himself saw a patient
beaten for walking up to one of the staff members and saying 'I
like you'.
On numerous occasions, when the pseudo-patients
approached staff members with polite requests for information, the
staff simply ignored the request over 80 percent of the time and
did not answer. When a question was presented to a psychiatrist
it went unanswered and ignored over 70 percent of the time. That
is how people are treated in the psychiatric wards at the hospitals
that I have been admitted to also. Then if you ask more than once
you are then threatened.
Now think about this. How many people receive chemotherapy
for cancer when the fact is they don't have cancer at all. What
about heart disease ? How many people are prescribed dangerous pharmaceuticals
for heart disease that do not have heart disease. Last year over
170,000 people's deaths were caused by prescription drugs. Yet the
American people line up for them. About 3,500 deaths were caused
by illicit drugs such as crack, meth, heroin etc and zero deaths
from marijuana. Yet you will go to prison if you are caught possessing
one of these drugs and you will go to prison for a very long time
if you are caught selling one of these drugs. The bottom line is
that the drug dealer on the corner is responsible for far less deaths
than medical doctors. The difference is that the drug dealer on
the corner does not have a license to KILL like the M.D.! These
are prime examples of the Cognitive Dissonance of the common American
mind.
THE END
More Stephen Ames Essays:
An Indictment
Of The American Mind
The Thoughtless
Mind
Crime and Commerce
The Ultimate
Delusion
I hope you learned someting from the Essays. Stephen
wrote hundreds of them. Some of them will never be released because
they are extremely controversial and would really upset just about
everyone. However, to see what a Police State Pennsylvania is go
to www.prisoners.com.
This site is dedicated to showing the world what is happening in
Pennsylvania. You won't believe it. There are hundreds of examples
on this site of the absolutely twisted actions of the people of
Pennsylvania. I'm not going to tell you exactly what is on the site,
you will have to see it for yourself. It is beyond your wildest
nightmares. Read everything in the Public Enemies section in its
entirety first. There are about a hundred articles in this section
alone. You will never come to Pennsylvania again after reading them.
Another web site dedicated to the tens of thousands of atrocities
committed here in Pennsylvania recently is
www.keystonereport.com
(site may be down.)
Archived at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040304171402/http://keystonereport.com/
I recommend the Philly Atrocities section and its
weekly archives. This section is found in the left side column.
If you would like to read more essays that were written by Stephen
Ames and others let me know. I can be reached at:
Nicole Terry
630k Willow Street, Highspire,
Pennsylvania 17034
PH: 717-986-0239
EMAIL:
Factseeker@Hotpop.com
We are grateful for the
AMERICAN PATRIOT
FRIENDS NETWORK for originating these essays.
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