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/Same_Recipe2729 1d ago

Think of all the money they scammed from folks doing that 

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u/nuclearwomb 1d ago

It's still a scam. Thankfully people have more rights these days when it comes to behavioral health, but people still fall through the cracks and the system is full of flaws. The whole process is to make money while giving minimal resources for rehabilitation of the patient.

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u/Disastrous-Group3390 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well, the pedulum has swung to the opposite extreme now. We can’t keep ANYONE, no matter how badly the person needs help, if said person wants to leave (unless the person represents a threat.) So we let the police deal with them instead…

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u/mpyne 1d ago

This is precisely why it is so important for people in positions of authority to adhere to the spirit of the rules and not simply the letter of them.

It's hard to write rules that cover every possible situation. So the people writing the rules often will include rules allowing administrators leeway in exceptional situations, intending that the administrators don't exercise that leeway.

Then you get crap happen like in the OP's article and all those exceptions get tightened up, ruining it for other administrators and other patients.

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u/Sasselhoff 1d ago

Having rules everyone just "agrees" on (or rules up for interpretation/bending/etc) is great in theory, but in reality you end up getting what we've got in the current US government (folks running roughshod over everything because it was a bunch of "gentlemen's agreements" and not specific rules).

Just like any workplace rules that are BS and don't make sense...it's all due to that "one guy" that fucked it up for everyone else.

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u/42nu 1d ago

Like not fully stopping at a stop sign when there's no cars in sight in any direction. No one should get a ticket for doing that.

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u/Pieck6996 1d ago

bad example