Robert L. Rosenhan

Robert L. Rosenhan was a psychologist best known for his influential 1973 study, "On Being Sane in Insane Places." In this experiment, he and colleagues feigned auditory hallucinations to gain admission to mental hospitals, then behaved normally once admitted. The study revealed that mental health diagnoses can be unreliable, and that hospitals often dehumanize patients. Rosenhan’s work highlighted serious issues in psychiatric diagnosis and raised questions about the validity of mental health labels, ultimately encouraging reforms toward more accurate and humane mental health treatment.