The Great PretenderThe Great Pretender
the Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness
Title rated 3.95 out of 5 stars, based on 104 ratings(104 ratings)
Paperback, 2020
Current format, Paperback, 2020, First trade edition., Available .eBook
Also offered as eBook, Available. Available
For centuries, doctors have struggled to define mental illness -- how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you even know what it is? In search of an answer, in the 1970s Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan and seven other people -- sane, well-adjusted members of society -- went undercover into asylums around America to test the legitimacy of psychiatry's labels. Forced to remain inside until they'd "proven" themselves sane, all eight emerged with alarming diagnoses and troubling stories of their treatment. Rosenhan's watershed study broke open the field of psychiatry, closing down institutions and changing mental health diagnosis forever. But, as Susannah Cahalan's explosive new research shows, very little in this saga is exactly as it seems. What really happened behind those closed asylum doors, and what does it mean for our understanding of mental illness today? Cahalan's propulsive narrative history exposes a startling mystery, and offers a searing, urgent look at the culture in which a single experiment could change the course of modern medicine.
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- New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2020., ©2019
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