The Great Pretender
-
-
4.3 • 18 Ratings
-
-
- $19.99
-
- $19.99
Publisher Description
"One of America's most courageous young journalists" and the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Brain on Fire investigates the shocking mystery behind the dramatic experiment that revolutionized modern medicine (NPR).
Doctors have struggled for centuries to define insanity--how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you even know what it is? In search of an answer, in the 1970s a Stanford psychologist named David Rosenhan and seven other people--sane, healthy, well-adjusted members of society--went undercover into asylums around America to test the legitimacy of psychiatry's labels. Forced to remain inside until they'd "proven" themselves sane, all eight emerged with alarming diagnoses and even more troubling stories of their treatment. Rosenhan's watershed study broke open the field of psychiatry, closing down institutions and changing mental health diagnosis forever.
But, as Cahalan's explosive new research shows in this real-life detective story, very little in this saga is exactly as it seems. What really happened behind those closed asylum doors?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In the 1970s, eight volunteers led by a Stanford psychologist named David Rosenhan entered mental asylums around the U.S. Their undercover mission? Find out why the people diagnosed as insane had received their diagnoses and how they were treated. In the The Great Pretender, journalist Susannah Cahalan—who detailed her own harrowing struggle with mental illness in her first book, Brain on Fire—delves deep into the history of this provocative experiment. She untangles the complicated truths behind Rosenhan’s findings and raises compelling questions about the validity of his conclusions. Read by Cahalan and voice actress Christie Moreau, this audiobook is so riveting and suspenseful we found ourselves gasping audibly.
Customer Reviews
So so
This book works well as an educational book for psych class. I had it in the car and we were expecting an engaging story on people locked in and asylum and their experiences… there was very little of that. Since the author has such little info they padded the book with a history of psychiatry and it’s relationship with issues such as homosexuality. We were expecting something riveting but the book was quite dull and felt like a textbook.
Listeners Also Bought