The Great Pretender
Release:
11/05/2019
Release:
11/05/2019
Runtime:
11h 5m
Quantity:
“It’s absorbing, sometimes sobering, sometimes seriously funny. Cahalan’s narration makes the reading great fun, with an urgency occasionally akin to a thriller.”
Shelf Awareness
A Kirkus Reviews Pick of 23 Best Reads for Book Clubs
A Time Magazine Book of the Year for 2019
A New York Times Pick of the Month
A Washington Post Pick of the Month
An O Magazine Pick of the Month
A San Francisco Chronicle Top Shelf Pick for November
A Houston Chronicle Pick of the Month
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of Best Books Now in Paperback
"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?
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?
Release:
2019-11-05
2019-11-05
Runtime:
Runtime:
11h 5m
11h 5m
Format:
audio
audio
Weight:
0.75 lb
0.0 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781549175282
9781549175299
Praise