Martha Mitchell effect


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Martha Mitchell effect

[Martha Mitchell, 1918–1976. Wife of U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, she complained that illegal activities were going on in the Nixon White House during Watergate but was ignored because she was thought to suffer from psychiatric illness.]
The mistaken diagnosis by a medical professional that a patient has a delusional disorder.
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Neyfakh even cites "the Martha Mitchell effect," the name credited to psychologist Brendan Maher for a phenomenon in which accurate perceptions of real events are dismissed as delusions and attributed to mental illness.
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