Psychology Mental Health Issues - 1193 Words

Many people assume that doctors, and other medical professionals, with all the necessary schooling, would have a solid ability to differentiate people with mental health issues, from those that do not have mental health issues. Have you ever wondered how well psychiatrists are able to tell apart the â€Å"sane† from the â€Å"insane† (63 Slater)? Would you be willing to test the system, and see if a doctor of psychiatry would be able to differentiate the difference between someone who is acting as if they are displaying a symptom, and someone with a true mental disorder? Well, this is exactly what David Rosenhan did in the 1970’s (63 Slater). He called on eight of his friends and proposed that they all play a role in his experiment to answer the†¦show more content†¦Spitzer does display much empathy, therefore she concludes that he is still despised in the field several decades later (66-67). At first response, I find myself disappointed that a doctor, and not just a single incident, but different doctors, were unable to detect that any of the participants where not mentally unstable at all. But then in the same breath I wonder what trust has to do with it. When my children were younger, they would come to me in the early morning hours with complaints of a stomach ache, I would get up and give them lemon-lime soda, a bowl by their bedside, and see if there were any other symptoms. I trusted that what they told me was real and did not question their complaints. But there were sometimes they would come to me and say that they didn’t feel good, and I would feel for a temperature and see what was bothering them. If no temperature was present or no other evidence of being sick was present then I would begin to wonder if something, such as a test at school, or a lack of finished homework, might be the culprit of why they were not feeling so well. I would challenge their sickness by saying things like, â€Å"Well if you don’t go to school then you can’t stay home and watch television all day.† If they were not really sick then they would change their mind and end up going to school. But I knew my children well