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1. Essay On Being Sane in Insane Places
Essay On Being Sane in Insane PlacesEssay On Being Sane in Insane PlacesOne of the more
controversial articles published about mental hospitals is David Rosenhan’s “On Being Sane
in Insane Places.” This account describes how 8 sane people gained admission to 12
different mental hospitals by complaining to the admissions office that they had been
hearing voices that said, “Empty, hollow, and thud.’ The pseudo-patients behaved normally
during the rest of the admission interview and throughout their hospitalization. Although
all of them were eventually released from the mental hospitals, with the length of the
hospitalization ranging from 7 to 52 days, all were released with the stigmatizing label
“schizophrenia in remission.”The most shocking aspect of the study concerns the
experiences the pseudo-patients had while in the mental hospitals. In brief, they received
almost no attention from the doctors, nurses, or even attendants, and they were sedated
with over 2,000 pills (which they flushed down the toilets, as did many real patients). The
few interactions they had with the staff were usually antitherapeutic. For example,
Rosenhan describes how doctors ignored patients, as in the following exchange:Pseudo-
patient: Pardon me, Dr. X. Could you tell me when I am eligible for grounds
privileges?Physician: Good morning, Brett. How are you today? (Moves off without waiting
for a response.)In summing up the study, Rosenhan noted that the pseudo-patients
experienced very strong feelings of powerlessness and depersonalization, leading to the
conclusion that many mental hospitals are actually detrimental to the patients’ mental
health. The flaws of the mental hospitals described in Rosenhan’s article are not
unavoidable, as evidenced by the hospital system described by Polak, Deever, and Kirby
(1977). For example, in a southwest Denver inpatient hospital alternative system, clients
are diagnosed at home rather than in the hospital. Staff offices have been eliminated,
leading to greatly increased patient-staff interaction. To avoid depersonalization, patients
are often placed and treated in the homes of carefully screened families rather than in a
large, impersonal hospital. Also, the daily cost of such treatment is considerably less than
the standard rate in hospitals. All of this indicates that it is possible to develop a workable,
cost-efficient alternative to psychiatric hospitals.What other ways can you think of where
mental health systems can work to humanize, empower, and personalize their care for
patients who have mental illness or disorders? Why do you think that it is important to
validate rather than ignore those who seek treatment for mental health issues and
disorders?ORDER NOW FOR CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPERSYou must proofread
your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker;

2. failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to
suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will
be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and
make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your
paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected
mistakes.Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or
compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is
better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress
it into fewer pages.Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing,
increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any
other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable,
wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.The paper must be neatly formatted,
double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When
submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to
read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.