ABSTRACT
A further approach within antipsychiatry starts from the assertion that the symptoms of mental disorder arise not from the disorder itself, but from the impact on the individual of being labelled as “mentally disordered”. A dramatic illustration of the potential power of such labels was described by ROSENHAN’s experimental research of voluntary mental hospital admissions. Rosenhan organized a group of “normal” people to present themselves for admission through falsifying symptoms of schizophrenia. Once admitted to hospital they reverted to their usual “normal” behaviour, yet the hospital staff never detected the pseudopatients as “fakes”. In fact, nothing they could say or do could convince the staff that they were sane – even openly writing research notes was labelled “obsessive writing behaviour”. This paper is entertaining and persuasive, and has become a classic in its field; however, the significance of labelling per se in shaping/defining mental illness is now generally accepted as oversimplistic and too extreme.
