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On Being Sane in Insane Places: David Rosenhan and his Thud Experiment

On Being Sane in Insane Places: David Rosenhan and his Thud Experiment David Rosenhan, 1973.  The “ Rosenhan Experiment”  or Thud experiment was a study conducted to determine the validity of the psychiatric diagnosis. The participants feigned hallucinations to enter psychiatric hospitals but acted usually afterward. They diagnosed them with psychiatric disorders and gave them antipsychotic medication. David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, conducted this study, and published it in the journal Science in 1973 under the title “On Being Sane in Insane Places”. Some consider it an essential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis and broach wrongful involuntary commitment. Rosenhan did the study in eight parts. The first part involved using healthy associates or “pseudopatients” (three women and five men, including Rosenhan himself) who briefly feigned auditory hallucinations to gain admission to twelve psychiatric hospitals in five states in the United States. They admitted all and