The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (1964) is a book-length psychiatric case study by Milton Rokeach, concerning his experiment with a group of schizophrenic patients at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

To study the basis for delusional belief systems, Rokeach brought together three men who each claimed to be Jesus Christ and confronted them with one another's conflicting claims, while encouraging them to interact personally as a support group. Rokeach also attempted to manipulate other aspects of their delusions by inventing messages from imaginary characters. He did not, as he had hoped, provoke any lessening of the patients' delusions, but did document a number of changes in their beliefs.

While initially the three patients quarreled over who was holier and reached the point of physical altercation, they eventually each explained away the other two as being mental patients in a hospital, or dead and being operated by machines.

Rokeach came to realize that his research had been manipulative and unethical. "I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives," he apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition of the book.

External links

• Snippet View of The Three Christs of Ypsilanti on Google Books