In 1973, psychologist David Rosenhan at Stanford University ran an experiment. Rosenhan went to one of twelve mental hospitals along with eight other mentally healthy people. The “patients” were to report they were seeing hallucinations. Once admitted, they were to act completely normal. No one at any of the hospitals were told about the experiment. Within a week, all eight “patients” were diagnosed with either schizophrenia or bipolar issues and were given antipsychotic medications. The results of the experiment were published, challenging the validity of diagnosing psychiatric disorders. The hospital, understandably alarmed, asked Stanford to repeat the experiment. Stanford agreed and promised to send eight more “patients” over the next five weeks. At the end of the five weeks, the hospital called Stanford to inform them they’d found every one of the eight people who were only faking mental illnesses. Stanford replied that they hadn’t actually sent any fake patients after all.
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