Conspiracies and the "Martha Mitchell" effect

[scubadiver]

I only came across this on 9/11 Blogger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect

Martha Mitchell, the wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, told her Psychologist that top White House officials were involved in illegal activities and was told that it was caused by mental illness.

The effect is stated as "the process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient's perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly".


The authors of a paper on this phenomenon ( Bell, V., Halligan, P.W., Ellis, H.D. (2003) Beliefs About Delusions. The Psychologist, 6 ( 8 ), 418-422) conclude:

"Sometimes, improbable reports are erroneously assumed to be symptoms of mental illness [due to a] failure or inability to verify whether the events have actually taken place, no matter how improbable intuitively they might appear to the busy clinician."

In other words, psychologists who haven't taken the time to examine for themselves the claims of their patients will tend to label as delusional anything which they "intuitively" feel is improbable.