num_pages: 382
description: 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 a Stanford psychologist named David Rosenhan and seven other people -- sane normal 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 even more troubling stories of their treatment. Rosenhan's study broke open the field of psychiatry closing down institutions and changing mental health diagnosis forever. But as Cahalan's 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?
language: English
title: The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness
publisher: Grand Central Publishing