Asylums
1961
- asylums
- mentally ill
- psychiatric hospitals
- sociological aspects
- sociological aspects of psychiatric hospitals
- patiënten
- institutionalisering
- hôpitaux psychiatriques
- malades mentaux
- psychiatrische inrichtingen
The story
A total institution is defined by Goffman as a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated, individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. Prisons serve as a clear example, providing we appreciate that what is prison-like about prisons is found in institutions whose members have broken no laws. This volume deals with total institutions in general and, mental hospitals, in particular. The main focus is, on the world of the inmate, not the world of the staff. A chief concern is to develop a sociological version of the structure of the self. Each of the essays in this book were intended to focus on the same issue--the inmate's situation in an institutional context. Each chapter approaches the central issue from a different vantage point, each introduction drawing upon a different source in sociology and having little direct relation to the other chapters. This method of presenting material may be irksome, but it allows the reader to pursue the main theme of each paper analytically and comparatively past the point that would be allowable in chapters of an integrated book. If sociological concepts are to be treated with affection, each must be traced back to where it best applies, followed from there wherever it seems to lead, and pressed to disclose the rest of its family. (Author) Erving Goffman was Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania until his death in 1982. Publisher's note.
What it’s like
Dense, unhurried sociological prose with a dry, observant voice, the kind that reads like careful fieldwork notes sharpened into argument. Its world is the inside of institutions: wards, dormitories, daily routines of meals, schedules and enforced waiting, rendered through precise terminology and long analytic sentences rather than imagery, so the sensory texture is institutional and drab, fluorescent corridors and grey regimentation described by the cool logic of observation. The tone is clinical but quietly humane, with a steady undercurrent of unease at how selves are shaped and stripped by systems. It reads best in a focused weekday stretch or over several sittings, not as a comfort read: the rhythm is essayistic, each chapter starting fresh from a different angle, so it rewards patience and slow note-taking. Intensity is low in terms of graphic content, with no gore or sexual material, but the subject carries real weight, including accounts of humiliation, loss of identity, and the coercive side of psychiatric care, which lands as intellectual discomfort rather than shock. Written for readers of sociology, medicine and social theory, and for anyone curious how institutions make people who they are.
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