“How David Rosenhan’s Fraudulent Thud Experiment Set Back Psychiatry for Decades: In the 1970s, a Social Psychologist Published ‘Findings’ Deeply Critical of American Psychiatric Methods. The Problem Was They Were Almost Entirely Fictional”, 2020-01-25 (; backlinks):
As her work proceeded, her [Cahalan] doubts about Rosenhan’s work grew. At one point, I suggested that she write to Science and request copies of the peer review of the paper. What had the reviewers seen and requested? Did they know the identities of the anonymous pseudo-patients and the institutions to which they had been consigned? What checks had they made on the validity of Rosenhan’s claims? Had they, for example, asked to see the raw field notes? The editorial office told her that the peer review was confidential and they couldn’t share it. I wondered whether an approach from an academic rather than a journalist might be more successful, and with Cahalan’s permission, I sought the records myself, pointing out the important issues at stake, and noting that it would be perfectly acceptable for the names of the expert referees to be redacted. This time the excuse was different: the journal had moved offices, and the peer reviews no longer existed. That’s plausible, but it is distinctly odd that such different explanations should be offered.
…Of course, proving a negative, especially after decades have passed, is nigh on impossible. Perhaps the appearance of The Great Pretender will cause one or more of the missing pseudo-patients to surface, or for their descendants to speak up and reveal their identities, for surely anyone who participated in such a famous study could not fail to mention it to someone. More likely, I think, is that these people are fictitious, invented by someone who Cahalan’s researches suggest was fully capable of such deception. (Indeed, the distinguished psychologist Eleanor Maccoby, who was in charge of assessing Rosenhan’s tenure file, reported that she and others were deeply suspicious of him, and that they found it ‘impossible to know what he had really done, or if he had done it’, granting him tenure only because of his popularity as a teacher.)
…Most damning of all, though, are Rosenhan’s own medical records. When he was admitted to the hospital, it was not because he simply claimed to be hearing voices but was otherwise ‘normal’. On the contrary, he told his psychiatrist his auditory hallucinations included the interception of radio signals and listening in to other people’s thoughts. He had tried to keep these out by putting copper over his ears, and sought admission to the hospital because it was ‘better insulated there’. For months, he reported he had been unable to work or sleep, financial difficulties had mounted and he had contemplated suicide. His speech was retarded, he grimaced and twitched, and told several staff that the world would be better off without him. No wonder he was admitted.
Perhaps out of sympathy for Rosenhan’s son and his closest friends, who had granted access to all this damning material and with whom she became close, I think Cahalan pulls her punches a bit when she brings her book to a conclusion. But the evidence she provides makes an overwhelming case: Rosenhan pulled off one of the greatest scientific frauds of the past 75 years, and it was a fraud whose real-world consequences still resonate today. Exposing what he got up to is a quite exceptional accomplishment, and Cahalan recounts the story vividly and with great skill.