# How is the Rosenhan experiment viewed in modern psychiatry? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 10, 2012, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-rosenhan-experiment-viewed-in-modern-psychiatry/631070 "2012-08-10T10:48:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 19
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-rosenhan-experiment-viewed-in-modern-psychiatry/631070/19 "2021-08-05T05:31:42Z")
Bump! Yes, NINE years later indeed! Who here is still interested in this? I’m a bit disappointed that this thread never really answered OP’s question “How is the Rosenhan experiment viewed in modern psychiatry?”, beyond OP’s remark: > [@grude](#): > > . . . since this study was done a LOT has changed . . . Today, we see news that the Rosenhan Effect is alive and well: > **[Man arrested in mistaken identity case locked in Hawaii mental health...](https://news.yahoo.com/man-arrested-mistaken-identity-case-144636493.html)** > > Joshua Spriestersbach was released after being locked up for two years and eight months and forced to take psychiatric drugs Joshua Spriestersbach, who was wrongfully arrested for someone else’s crime and then committed to a state hospital, was... TL;DR: Homeless man in Hawaii mistaken for someone else, arrested for a crime that someone else committed, and locked away in a psych hospital for over two years, diagnosed as delusional when he denied being the person they thought he was. Numerous people involved in the law enforcement and at the hospital failed to do so much as make a phone call or google search which could have verified who he was, or who he wasn’t. > [@](#): > > Spriestersbach’s lawyers argue that the mixup could have been avoided if police had simply compared the two men’s fingerprints and photographs. Instead, Hawaii officials locked Spriestersbach in the Hawaii State Hospital for nearly three years and forced him to take psychiatric drugs. In January 2020, officials realized their mistake and quietly released him, with 50 cents to his name. > > “The more Mr. Spriestersbach vocalized his innocence by asserting that he is not Mr Castleberry, the more he was declared delusional and psychotic by the HSH staff and doctors and heavily medicated,” the petition said. “No one would believe him or take any meaningful steps to verify his identity and determine that Mr. Spriestersbach was telling the truth – he was not Mr Castleberry,” it added. > > For two years and eight months, hospital staff and Spriestersbach’s own public defenders refused to believe him, until a hospital psychiatrist finally listened. According to the court document, all it took were a few Google searches and phone calls to confirm that he was on another island when Castleberry was initially arrested. (ETA: Above article, seen at Yahoo News, originally published in The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2021. Note, it says he was released in January 2020. Not obvious why this is suddenly in the news now and not then.) --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-the-rosenhan-experiment-viewed-in-modern-psychiatry/631070)._