What would be the outcome of someone now sending "pseudodeppressives" into primary care offices with complaints of being "unhappy" and "sad" and "having trouble sleeping" in order to see how many were diagnosed with mood disorder and given a presciption for antidepressants. I can predict that most would be successful. But we don't see the current state of affairs as scandalous as that which was exposed by Rosenhan.
Bill Scott >>> "Christopher D. Green" <chri...@yorku.ca> 03/21/10 8:44 PM >>> Since we've been discussing Rosenhan, I thought that this might interest some of you. More than eight decades before Rosenhan sent his student to mental hospitals pretending to be mad, a reporter for the /New York World/ who went by the pen name of Nellie Bly, feigned insanity in order to gain admittance to a New York City insane asylum and find out what conditions were really like. After a week-and-a-half there, the newspaper had her sprung, and she wrote the devastating exposé _Ten Day in a Madhouse_ (1887). Her report prompted a grand jury investigation of conditions in mental hospitals. A Wikipedia description is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly#Asylum_expos.C3.A9 Here's an excerpt: "The food consisted of gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough, and dirty undrinkable water. The dangerous inmates were tied together with ropes. The inmates were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital." The full book can be found here: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html Interestingly, this was three years BEFORE Jacob Riis' _How the Other Half Lives_ made conditions in New York tenements a major social issue. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.ca http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: wsc...@wooster.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13058.902daf6855267276c83a639cbb25165c&n=T&l=tips&o=1438 or send a blank email to leave-1438-13058.902daf6855267276c83a639cbb251...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1439 or send a blank email to leave-1439-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
