- Martha Mitchell effect
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The Martha Mitchell effect is 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.
Contents
Description
According to Bell et al., "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."[1] They note that typical examples of such situations, may include:
- Pursuit by practitioners of organized crime
- Surveillance by law enforcement officers
- Infidelity by a spouse
- Physical issues
Quoting psychotherapist Joseph Berke, the authors note that "even paranoids have enemies." Any patient, they explain, can be misdiagnosed by clinicians, especially ones with a history of paranoid delusions.
Origin
Psychologist Brendan Maher named the effect after Martha Beall Mitchell.[2] Mrs. Mitchell was the wife of John Mitchell, Attorney-General in the Nixon administration. When she alleged that White House officials were engaged in illegal activities, her claims were attributed to mental illness. Ultimately, however, the relevant facts of the Watergate scandal vindicated her and hence attracted to her the title of "Cassandra of Watergate". Although many of her claims to this day have been proven to be fanciful and false i.e., at one point, she insisted she had been held against her will in a California hotel room and sedated to prevent her from making controversial phone calls to the news media.[3]
After the Watergate break-in Martha Mitchell began contacting reporters when her husband's role in the scandal became known, which earned her the title, "the Mouth of the South". Nixon was later to tell interviewer David Frost (in September 1977 on Frost on America) that Martha was a distraction to John Mitchell such that no one was minding the store, and "If it hadn't been for Martha Mitchell, there'd have been no Watergate."
See also
References
- ^ Bell, V., Halligan, P.W., Ellis, H.D. (August 2003). "Beliefs About Delusions". The Psychologist 16 (8): 418–422. JI 0.325. http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=16&editionID=97&ArticleID=588.
- ^ Maher, B.A. (1988) "Anomalous experience and delusional thinking: The logic of explanations." In T. Oltmanns and B. Maher (eds) Delusional Beliefs. New York: Wiley Interscience
- ^ Reeves, Richard President Nixon: Alone in the White House, p. 511.
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