This five-part film examines one of the most infamous psychological experiments of all time, an experiment from which psychiatry has never quite recovered.

In 1973, psychologist David Rosenhan conducted an experiment which shocked the psychological community with its results, and became an influential criticism on the nature of diagnosis. This film looks at the context of the study in the anti-psychiatry movement of the 70’s, how the pseudo patients gained entry, their experiences of being sane in insane places, what they found and how critics evaluated the study. It concludes by looking at some more recent experiments influenced by Rosenhan’s experiment, and its continuing implications for the diagnosis and treatment of the mentally ill in contemporary societies.