The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

From the Publisher: For centuries, doctors have struggled to define mental illness-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, normal, 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, very little in this saga is exactly as it seems. What really happened behind those closed asylum doors, and what does it mean for our understanding of mental illness today?

In her follow up to her 2012 memoir Brain on Fire, Cahalan flexes her journalism muscles and investigates a topic near and dear to her: psychology vs. psychiatry.

In The Great Pretender, Cahalan presents David Rosenhan, a Stanford psychologist who published a psychiatric (the difference between the two becomes an important aspect of the book and story) study that changed the way mental health has been addressed in the United States and much of the world. It may seem like the title of the book gives away the ending, but Cahalan manages to capture your attention and weave Rosenhan’s tale, while incorporating snippets of her own mental health ordeal, and make you want to know every detail. Of particular interest is the chapter on the impacts of Rosenhan’s study on how mental illness is addressed in the criminal justice system.

“It was better to be mentally ill in the 1970s, in the age of lobotomies and Thorazine, that it is today.”

The book is great for lovers of memoirs, medical journalism, or just general narrative non-fiction. Brain on Fire, Cahalan’s memoir of her battle with the medical system, is one of my favorite books, and this follow up does not disappoint.

The Galesburg Public Library owns this book in print format.