What if Someone Tried to Get You Admitted to a Psychiatric Hospital?
The very real-life dangers of faking severe mental illness
I was reading Rory Cockshaw’s article: Pseudo-Schizophrenia: How to Fool a Psychiatrist.
That talks about the time in 1973 in America when some people faked being mentally ill. In doing so, they were admitted into psychiatric hospitals.
Once in the hospitals, they saw shocking behaviour from the staff. And they were unfairly judged as behaving like they were mentally ill. Even when they were doing normal things like writing in their journals.
This is troubling. Because it shows that people perceive what they are expecting to perceive. In the context of a psychiatric hospital, a patient is assumed to be mentally ill. After all, why would they be there?
And this raises a worrying question:
What if a “friend” or family member tried to get you into a psychiatric hospital under false pretences? You might not be mentally ill but just considered a nuisance to them.
Does that sound unlikely? Well, it’s exactly what happened to Leonora Watkins: My Dad Tried To Have Me Sectioned.
Thankfully, it didn’t work, because one person alone cannot get someone sectioned. As…
