The problem with the label “insane” is that it implies that we know what insanity actually means. Some consider insanity to be someone who deviates from the norm and is dysfunctional. Others consider the criteria for insanity to be strictly and certainly based off the DSM, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V. What if someone is insane by one standard yet not by another? That’s the crazy thing about insanity-- there is no set way to define it. Insanity is ill-defined, and it is the focus of Cuckoo’s Nest’s characters.
Psychology as a whole is a relatively unreliable field when compared to its more physical counterparts. In most fields of medicine, outdated information is pushed out of textbooks and the more correct information takes its place. As Liah Greenfeld, Ph.D. of…show more content… How can an absolutely concrete definition be developed when the landscape of psychology is being reinvented? This is one of the central topics in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy is never actually diagnosed in the novel. Whether or not he is actually insane is debated by the doctors, nurses, and patients. In the scene of the meeting between the doctors and nurses, most of the doctors are unsure of whether McMurphy is there because he is violent or because he faked it to get out of the work farm. The men spitball possible diagnoses in the following…show more content… Some characters seem as though they could be perfectly sane, but they are anything but. In other cases, such as Billy Bibbit’s, he is closer to sane than even the staff themselves. At its core, insanity depends on who is asked. Chief may be delusional, but he makes a good point about his hallucinations. “It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen. (Kesey
