Susannah cahalan biography of barack

Interview

Susannah Cahalan discusses her latest book, The Great Pretender, and what she hopes people will learn from reading it.

What drew you to this topic?

Did you go looking for such an explosive story, or was it luck?
It started from a highly personal place. When I first read David Rosenhan's study, his experience with depersonalization and labeling rang so true to my own experience.

But chancing upon that explosive story (as you describe it!) was total luck. When I was writing the book, I didn't see these issues as a positive thing for the narrative—I worried that this book was done with!

Why do you feel it is important or urgent for readers to be discussing Rosenhan and his work?
Even though Rosenhan's study is now almost fifty years old, so many of the questions that he raises in it—how to distinguish "sanity" from "insanity," how to treat serious mental illness, the role of context in diagnosis