• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About the author and her website
  • References
  • Archives
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Contact Page

Defrosting Cold Cases

Research website by Alice de Sturler

  • My Research Method
  • How to search for cases
  • Cold Case Database
  • Case of the Month: Rita Hester
  • Book Reviews
  • Unsolved Cases Database A-G
  • Unsolved Cases Database H-N
  • Unsolved Cases Database O-Z
You are here: Home / Book Reviews / The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

June 22, 2020 By Alice

The Great Pretender by Susannah CahalanThe Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan may not seem a logical choice for a book review on a website about old, unsolved cases. However, her book is exactly that.

Cahalan wrote a book about the Rosenhan Experiment in which unknown people posed as patients in unknown medical facilities. There are indications of truth, lies, fraud, and deception.

Nobody got murdered but those who posed as pseudo-patients, seem to be missing. Not literally, but their true identities are not clear. So, why were some people used as pseudo-patients and why is Cahalan searching for the exact timeline?

Author

Cahalan got autoimmune encephalitis that temporarily, robbed her of her sanity. Autoimmune encephalitis refers to a group of conditions that occur when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy brain cells, leading to inflammation of the brain. People with autoimmune encephalitis may have various neurological and/or psychiatric symptoms.

As long as the doctors were convinced that Cahalan’s behavior was rooted into a mental illness, she and her family felt that she was not taken serious. She was acting crazy so they just saw a schizophrenic person. Until there was evidence of brain-targeting auto-antibodies.

As soon as Cahalan’s ordeal became a physical illness, her treatment changed of course, but, more important, she felt that everyone’s perception of her had changed. She wrote about it in her book Brain on Fire. There she ponders the differences between physical disorders and psychiatric conditions, perception, and all the implications.

Prove your sanity

How do you define sanity and most importantly, can you prove that you are sane? Could you get yourself admitted to a mental institution based on a lie, get diagnosed, and then get discharged because you do are sane? It sounds like a horrible dare as so many things can go wrong. But is happened. This is the Rosenhan Experiment. So, what is the story behind it?

Nellie Bly

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane Seaman (May 5, 1864 – Jan 27, 1922) aka Nellie Bly, was an American journalist. She was internationally renowned for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days. That resulted in Jules Verne’s fictional character, Phileas Fogg. But she is equally known for her undercover work to investigate mental institutions under her pen name. Bly feigned to have a mental illness to get admitted to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island (NY) to experience how the patients were treated. The asylum opened in 1839 and closed in 1894. You can read about it in her book “Ten days in a madhouse.”

Cahalan heard of Dr. David Rosenhan‘s study, knew about Bly, and had first-hand experience with the perception of insanity. Rosenhan’s experiment was an extended version from Bly’s. Not one person and one institution but several people as pseudo-patients would explore several institutions. You can find the report about that experiment here. The Rosenhan study builds on the idea that insanity is in the eye of the beholder. Are people perceived by others to be insane because they are in an asylum or, because there is an objective diagnoses?

While Cahalan was trying to get more information about the report and the people involved, she kept “running into sloppiness that seemed unprofessional and possibly unethical” and this is where the book starts to grab you. It is in the methodology, the information gathering, the time line, the exact number of days that pseudo-patients were inside an institution, what exactly their diagnosis was, how they got discharged, whether they were at any point in danger, what safety measures were in place to get them out, which authority figures knew about the experiments so they could intervene, etc.

Cahalan started to dissect the report line by line, case by case. She found that Rosenhan had taken precautions for his safety such as letting the institution’s superintendent know in advance about the experiment and he took a tour of the facility before staying there. Cahalan found that this wasn’t the case for the other pseudo-patients which poses a tremendous threat for their safety. She also found that after the report came out, there was a lot of criticism from peers in prominent places who published that critique in prominent scientific magazines.

Cahalan’s book describes the journey she had to take to find the truth about the Rosenhan Experiment, the report, the data, the pseudo-patients, what they really said during their intake, what they really observed, what eventually got them discharged, and how they coped with the consequences of the study.

The author takes you through the debate to rethink psychiatric diagnosis, whether we needs some standards of symptoms that all patients must exhibit before their freedom can be taken away from them, the standardized treatment, observation days, etc. and make it uniform around the USA.

Pay attention to Chapter 22. It deals with the pseudo-patient who became a footnote just because his findings and data did not match Rosenhan’s thesis “that institutions are uncaring, ineffective, and even harmful places.”

Rosemary Kennedy

There is a chapter dedicated to Rosemary Kennedy. How she was born, what treatments she had to endure, and what eventually became of her. It is a heartbreaking chapter. This part also describes what would eventually become the basis for Medicare and Medicaid.

Thoughts

Cahalan has written a book that rips to shreds a scientific report that was at first heralded as the new milestone. But just like in true crime, a scientific report and its findings are only as good as the people involved and their truthful handling of data. The author went through pages of information, seeking details, trying to complete the time lines, to see if she reaches the same conclusions as others had before her. And then she wrote this book about it.

“The Great Pretender” is a marvelous book that you need to pick up if ethics in reporting, scientific data, and the fields of psychiatry are of interest to you. Highly recommended reading! My other book reviews are here.

Thank you for sharing!

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Book Reviews, Susannah Cahalan

Primary Sidebar

Dina Fort

Author Notes

On this website, I write about old, unsolved cases. Most are from the pre-DNA era and are in need of renewed media attention. I only do research and leave the active investigation of these cases to the professionals.

My posts are about homicides, missing and unidentified people, wrongful convictions, and forensics as related to these cases.

On book reviews: I only review select works of true crime, crime fiction, and historical fiction/mysteries. The stories have to fit my website's theme and research. It remains my prerogative to not review a book.

My database has over 325 cases listed by the victim’s last name. You will find a brief description there as well. The database will always be free to the public to use. You cannot buy ad space on my website, ever.

All writing suggestions that come in by email are added to my to-do list in the order in which they were received. Please be patient. My to-do list is very long but no case gets dropped and I will get back in touch.

Defrosting Cold Cases is NOT an organization. It is my brainchild.

If you have any questions about my website please check the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, the about page, and the tabs in both menu bars. If you still cannot find the answer there, please contact me.

Thank you,

Alice de Sturler

Copyright

If you use my work, please add a link back. Let your readers know where you found your information. I do the same for you. Thank you!

Protected by Copyscape

Categories

Top Posts & Pages

  • Cold Case Database
  • Hazel Juanita Hanna and Cynthia Lorraine Bell
  • Gina Renee Hall partial remains found
  • How to search for cases
  • Rita Hester (Nov 30, 1963 - Nov 28, 1998)

Subscribe to DCC by email

Enter your email address to get new posts notifications in your inbox

RSS Defrosting Cold Cases

  • Rita Hester (Nov 30, 1963 – Nov 28, 1998)
  • Missing: Norvel Robert Nelson III
  • Gun Violence
  • Emily Johanne Carmela Starkloff
  • Donald Ray Watson (1953 – 1978)

William Thomas Zeigler

Category: ALL POSTS

On March 31, 2016, an evidentiary hearing was held to request touch DNA testing. On July 18, 2016, Judge Whitehead denied that request.

On November 23, 2016, an appeal was filed with the Florida Supreme Court. On April 21, 2017, the Florida Supreme Court denied the request for touch DNA analysis.

On May 8, 2017 a motion for a rehearing with the US Supreme Court was filed. It was denied November 13, 2017.

In the summer of 2019, the appeal for DNA testing to the Florida Conviction Integrity Unit was denied.

Richard Lapointe

Category: ALL POSTS

In March 2015, the Connecticut State Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Richard lapointe. On Oct 2, 2015, International Wrongful Conviction Day, Richard was set free. The judge ruled that he cannot be retried for the 1987 rape-murder of Mrs. Bernice Martin. Richard Lapointe died on Aug 4, 2020 of Covid19 complications.

In 1987, someone killed Bernice Martin. I hope that she will not become a forgotten file.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright: Please add a link back if you use my work. Let your readers know where you found your information. I do the same for you. If you need help with this, just contact me. Thank you, Alice de Sturler

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2009–2021 - Defrosting Cold Cases - All rights reserved · Hosting & WordPress: 3J WordPress Write Data

wordpress counter

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.