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Lead book review

How David Rosenhan’s fraudulent Thud experiment set back psychiatry for decades

In 1973, a social psychologist from Stanford perpetrated one of the greatest scientific frauds of recent history. Its consequences still resonate today, says Andrew Scull

24 January 2020

10:00 PM

24 January 2020

10:00 PM

The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed Our Understanding of Madness Susannah Cahalan

Canongate, pp.382, £16.99

In January 1973, Science (along with Nature, the most influential general science journal in the world) published an article that immediately captured major media attention. David Rosenhan, a Stanford social psychologist, reported that eight pseudo-patients had presented themselves at a variety of mental hospitals, 12 in all, complaining that they were hearing voices saying ‘hollow, empty and thud’, but otherwise behaving completely normally.

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