Martha Mitchell effect

The Martha Mitchell effect is the process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, other clinician, or a medical professional, labels the patient's accurate perception of real events as  and  accordingly.

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".

Examples of such situations are:


 * Pursuit by
 * by law enforcement officers
 * Infidelity by a spouse
 * Physical issues

Quoting psychotherapist, the authors report that, "even s have enemies". Any patient, they explain, can be misdiagnosed by clinicians, especially patients with a history of s.

Patients may be diagnosed as delusional when their grievances concern health care workers and/or health care institutions, even when the patient has no history of delusion. "A patient arriving claiming to have been injured by another health care professional is regarded as a crazy person who potentially could ruin the career of an innocent colleague."

Origin
Psychologist named the effect after. Mitchell was the wife of, in the. When she alleged that officials were engaged in illegal activities, her claims were attributed to mental illness. Ultimately, however, the facts of the vindicated her and garnered her the label, "The  of Watergate".

Although it has been stated that many of her allegations remain unproven, such as her claim that she had been drugged and put under guard during a visit to California after her husband was summoned back to, in order to prevent her from leaving the hotel or making phone calls to the news media., admitted in 1975 that her story was true, as reported in the . More supporting evidence that Martha was telling the truth was published in a 2017 news article in  about the appointment of a U.S. ambassador.