Includes bibliographical references (pages [315]-374) and index.
Contents:
Moons of Jupiter. Nellie Bly -- The seat of madness -- On being sane in insane places -- A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma -- The essence of David -- "Go slowly, and perhaps not at all" -- "I might not be unmasked" -- Committed -- Nine days inside a madhouse -- Getting in -- ...And only the insane knew who was sane -- W. Underwood -- Crazy eights -- Ward 11 -- Soul on ice -- Rosemary Kennedy -- The truth seeker -- "All other questions follow from that" -- Criterionating -- The SCID -- The footnote -- "It's all in your mind" -- Shadow mental health care system -- The hammer -- An epidemic -- Moons of Jupiter.
Summary:
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.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.