The Madness of the Sane – The Rosenhan Experiment

Shariq Ali
Valueversity

In 1973, American psychologist David Rosenhan conducted an experiment that shook the foundations of the mental health system.

His research was published in the prestigious scientific journal Science under the title On Being Sane in Insane Places.
Rosenhan arranged for eight mentally healthy individuals to be admitted to different psychiatric hospitals. They displayed only one false symptom: claiming to hear voices — medically known as auditory hallucinations.
After admission, they stopped all unusual behavior and began acting completely normally.

Despite this, no doctor or staff member acknowledged their mental health. All of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and even ordinary actions — such as writing in a diary — were interpreted as symptoms of illness. On average, they were kept in hospital for 19 days.

When one hospital challenged Rosenhan to send more fake patients, over a period of three months, 41 individuals were identified as suspected impostors — supposedly sent by Rosenhan.
Later, it was revealed that Rosenhan had not sent a single patient during that period.

Although journalist Susannah Cahalan later questioned some aspects of the study in her book The Great Pretender, the experiment sparked deep debate about psychiatric diagnosis, institutional behavior, and the problem of “labeling.”

This study reminds us that sometimes the problem is not within the person , but in the lens through which we observe and interpret them.