[Reflections of a child psychiatrist on the diagnosis and hospitalization in psychiatry of adults: an experience of David Rosenhan].

In the 1970s, David Rosenhan and seven other persons were hospitalized in twelve different psychiatric hospitals, pretending having heard voices uttering such words as void, hollow, thud. They were immediately hospitalized with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and, for one of them, of bipolar condition. Right after entering hospital, they reversed to normal behavior. None of them had a psychiatric history. Nevertheless, they were released after a time lapse of 7 to 52 days with a mean of 19 days. Release diagnosis was the same as the admission with the adjunct "in remission". D. Rosenhan points out the contextual and incertain aspect of the diagnosis and underlines the fact that it is apparently impossible to consider as being normal a person who has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Psychiatric labels stick to the skin. D. Rosenhan describes the pervasive boredom in a psychiatric hospital and the general set which leads to de-personalization. C. Chiland gives some precisions on what lead D. Rosenhan to undertake such an "experiment". She analyzes the reactions of the American psychiatric community which felt attacked in it's knowledge to the point of entirely rejecting the message. Indeed the criticism concerned the contextual aspect of diagnosis in the framework of the Gestaltpsychology and called to a necessary awareness of what is experienced by a hospitalized patient. Instead of seeking solutions to ward off the negative effects of the psychiatric hospital, effects that are inherent to any total institution, the community has rejected Rosenhan's experiment as being based on faking. Should a child psychiatrist feel securely innocent? The danger of labelling does exist for the children and their parents. Although a one-way choice in the dynamic contradiction between segregation and integration is not possible, one nevertheless has to remain vigilant regarding the institutions, even in day-care ones, so as to avoid imprisoning the child in rejection or stagnation attitudes.