Clinical Psychologists and other mental health providers confront a challenging

Question

Clinical Psychologists and other mental health providers confront a challenging task each time they sit across from a new client. Every individual has a unique story to tell – often filled with pain, confusion, and other symptoms that in most cases will be interpreted as a specific diagnosis.

Although the use of diagnostic labels is widely accepted in clinical practice, it is still somewhat controversial. In the 1960s and 1970s, many popular figures began to question whether mental disorders even exist, claiming that people were using mental disorder labels as a way to deal with people who did not fit into society. This movement, the antipsychiatry movement, became very popular with the counter-cultural movement in the 1960s and 1970s and was popularly displayed through the books/movies One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Girl, Interrupted. The antipsychiatry movement ignored the aspect that people with severe mental illness are clearly suffering and need treatment, but it did call attention to the stigma associated with being labeled with a mental illness

Being labeled with a mental illness can dramatically affect how psychologists and non-psychologists perceive a person. David Rosenhan (1973) demonstrated just how powerful the effects of labels are when he conducted a field experiment examining the validity and biasing powers of diagnostic labels. Rosenhan enlisted himself and seven other psychologically healthy individuals (including other psychologists and physicians, a painter and a housewife) to pose as “pseudopatients”. They presented themselves to emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitals claiming of “hearing voices” which were saying things like, “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud”. Apart from this complaint and giving false names and occupations, they answered all other questions honestly. All eight were diagnosed as mentally ill, which is not surprising. As one physician put it, “If someone swallowed blood and went to an ER and spat it up, one would not blame the physician for diagnosing a bleeding ulcer.”

What happened after they were admitted was startling. One they were admitted the “pseudopatients” task was to convince the staff that they were “sane”, so they could be discharged. They stopped talking about their symptoms and when asked by the staff, they denied having other symptoms and claimed to be feeling well. Nursing notes described the pseudopatients as ”friendly,” “cooperative,” and exhibiting no abnormal indications.” Yet, they spent from 9 days to 52 days in the hospital, and they were never unmasked by the medical staff, although several patients approached them, recognizing that “pseudopatients were not “really patients, like we are.”

Because the hospital staff could not differentiate pseudopatients from real ones, Rosenhan concluded that psychiatric diagnoses lacked validity.

In this exercise, I would like you to do a critical analysis of the Rosenhan study by arguing both sides of the controversy. I want you to give at least one argument supporting each side of this controversy, based on this study and what you've learned this week. Then decide which side of the controversy you find more convincing. Each of these answers should have a paragraph or more material.

Side 1: The study is a valid (trustworthy) test of the problems associated with labeling.

Side 2: The study is not a valid (trustworthy) test of the problems associated with labeling.

Which side of the controversy most closely represents your own beliefs about labeling? Why?

Explanation / Answer

The study is a valid (trustworthy)test of problems associated with labeling as

The is not trustworthy argument

There's always a social stigma associated with mental illness since time in memorable which is still continuing.Before labeling a person with a mental illness it's the duty and responsibility of the medics to get every details of the conditions thoroughly checked because mental illness are not like physical ailments whose symptoms are more concrete and can be easily monitored and diagnosed.A wrong and hasty diagnosis may label an otherwise healthy individual with mental illness and person will have to suffer the social stigma associated with it.

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