Rosenhan’s “Being Sane in Insane Places”: Two Questions
Q1: How does this research illustrate the basic ideas of labeling theory in sociology?
The research provides proof that a label has a life of its own, which sticks into the person permanently and erroneously defines him in a capsulated form as limited as a diagnostic word. Once a diagnosis of mental illness (e.g. schizophrenia) is made, that label will stick with the person in the eyes of those who gave the label and those who knew of the label (Rosenhan 147). Moreover, with this limited conceptualization of the patient through the diagnostic label, the person becomes depersonalized into the label and every behavior observed from that person becomes attributed to the mental ailment (Rosenhan 153).
Q2: Once the “patients” were admitted to the hospitals, how was their subsequent behavior understood in terms of the label “mentally ill”? Did the label of mental illness disappear at the point at which the “patients” were discharged from the hospitals?
Psychiatric hospital workers consistently associated admission in the hospital as a logical proof of psychological disturbance. Moreover, while already in the hospital, any behavior observed in the patient, even otherwise normal behavior when seen outside the hospital, is interpreted as a behavioral manifestation of the diagnosed psychological disturbance (Rosenhan 149). Thus, the continuous and open note writing of the pseudopatients were interpreted as manifestations of the compulsive aspect of their schizophrenic diagnoses.
Moreover, the label stuck irreversibly into the pseudopatients so that their later discharge simply shifted the label from “schizophrenic” to “schizophrenic in remission”. In the view of the mental institution, the person had never been sane even before the admission to the hospital (Rosenhan 147).
Works Cited
Rosenhan, David L. “29: On Being Sane in Insane Places.” In Deviance. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1973. Print.
