Word made famous for the
study by
Rosenham. He instructed several sane people into
feigning simple auditory
hallucinations in to see if they could get admitted to
mental hospitals. They complained of having heard the words '
thud', '
empty', or '
hollow' in the past, but they were
OK now. They were all admitted into the mental hospital, diagnosed with
schizophrenia, except for one who was labelled as
manic-depressive.
The staff treated them like they were diagnosed, giving them medication and interpreting their behavior (they were taking notes) as suspicious activity, even though they acted like normal human beings. They had a helluva time getting themselves released.
This study resulted in two things: