Barnes & NobleThe Great Pretender- The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

This book asks the tough questions

“‘Insanity haunts the human imagination. It fascinates and frightens all at once. Few are immune to its terrors,’ wrote sociologist Andrew Scull in his book Madness in Civilization. ‘It challenges our sense of the very limits of what it is to be human.’ It’s undeniable: There is something profoundly upsetting about a person who does not share our reality, even though science shows us that the mental maps we each create of our own worlds are wholly unique. Our brains interpret our surroundings in highly specific ways—your blue may not be my blue. Yet what we fear is the unpredictability of a mentally ill “other.” This fear emerges from the sneaking realization that, no matter how sane, healthy, or normal we may believe we are, our reality could be distorted, too.” In the 1970’s a Stanford psychologist, David Rosenhan, set out to show that anyone could get themselves admitted to an asylum by changing just a few of their answers on an evaluation, and to show how they were treated once admitted even if they acted completely “normal”. The results of his study had a broad impact on the world of psychiatry. But as the author looked deeper into his study, she found that not all may have been as it was presented. This book brings to light questions we should all be asking ourselves about psychiatry. About how patients are diagnosed and treated, and how we should all keep looking for solutions and answers rather than allowing the ones seeming to need treatment to disappear or remain on the outsides of society as other. I really would recommend this book to anyone. It was informative and interesting. It asks the tough questions. I give it 4.5 stars.