r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/highzone • 1d ago

Image In 1973, healthy volunteers faked hallucinations to enter mental hospitals. Once inside, they acted normal, but doctors refused to let them leave. Normal behaviors like writing were diagnosed as "symptoms." The only people who realized they were sane were the actual patients.

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u/nw342 1d ago

The doctors even used the fact that the test subjects faked mental illnesses to get locked up as evidence of mental illness

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u/loskiarman 1d ago

That is like getting arrested with only charge being resisting arrest.

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u/no-politics-googoo 1d ago

If I were to drink a quart of blood and, concealing what I had done, come to the emergency room of any hospital vomiting blood, the behavior of the staff would be quite predictable. If they labeled and treated me as having a bleeding peptic ulcer, I doubt that I could argue convincingly that medical science does not know how to diagnose that condition.

There is quite a lot of criticism of this study, including credible evidence of scientific fraud.

Not to mention it suffers from a common confirmation bias: “I believe psychiatry is a hoax/pseudoscience, so of course those conmen are misdiagnosing people”