of chronicity in severe mental illness. The Rosenhan experiment of 1973 demonstrated the difficulty of distinguishing sane patients from insane patients. Franco Basaglia, a leading psychiatrist who inspired and planned the psychiatric reform in Italy, also defined the mental hospital as an oppressive, locked and total institution in which prison-like, punitive rules are applied, in order to gradually eliminate its own contents. Patients, doctors and nurses are all subjected (at different levels) to the same process of institutionalism. American psychiatrist Loren Mosher noticed that the psychiatric institution itself gave him master classes in the art of the "total institution": labeling, unnecessary dependency, the induction and perpetuation of powerlessness, the degradation ceremony, authoritarianism, and the primacy of institutional needs over the patients, whom it was ostensibly there to serve. The anti-psychiatry movement coming to the fore in the 1960s has opposed many of the practices, conditions, or existence of mental hospitals; due to the extreme conditions in them. The psychiatric consumer/survivor movement has often objected to or campaigned against conditions in mental hospitals or their use, voluntarily or involuntarily. The mental patient liberation movement emphatically opposes involuntary treatment but it generally does not object to any psychiatric treatments that are consensual, provided that both parties can withdraw consent at any time. Undercover journalism Alongside the 1973 academic investigation by Rosenhan and other similar experiments, several journalists have been willingly admitted to hospitals in order to conduct undercover journalism. These include: Julius Chambers, who visited Bloomingdale Insane Asylum in 1872, leading to the 1876 book A Mad World and Its People. Nelly Bly, who admitted herself to a mental institution in 1887, leading to the work Ten Days in a Mad-House. Frank Smith in 1935 admitted himself into a Kankakee hospital, leading to the articles Seven days in the Madhouse in the Chicago Daily Times. Michael Mok who investigated similarly in New York 1961, winning the Lasker prize. Frank Sutherland who received coaching from a psychiatrist in order to accurately feign symptoms, and spent 31 days in late 1973 to early 1974, leading to a series of articles in the Nashville Tennessean. Betty Wells who investigated in 1974, with the articles titled A Trip Into Darkness for the Wichita Eagle. See also Deinstitutionalisation History of mental disorders History of psychiatric institutions Institutional syndrome Kirkbride Plan Mental health law MindFreedom International New Freedom Commission on Mental Health Psychiatric survivors movement Political abuse of