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| Author | Erving Goffman |
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| Language | English |
| Subject | Total institutions |
| Publisher | Anchor Books |
Publication date | 1961 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 386 |
| OCLC | 744111 |
Asylums: Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates is a 1961 collection of four essays by the sociologist Erving Goffman.
Based on his participant observation field work (he was employed as a physical therapist's assistant under a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health at a mental institution in Washington, D.C.), Goffman details his theory of the "total institution" (principally in the example he gives, as the title of the book indicates, mental institutions) and the process by which it takes efforts to maintain predictable and regular behavior on the part of both "guard" and "captor", suggesting that many of the features of such institutions serve the ritual function of ensuring that both classes of people know their function and social role, in other words of "institutionalising" them. Goffman concludes that adjusting the inmates to their role has at least as much importance as "curing" them. In the essay "Notes on the Tinkering Trades", Goffman concluded that the "medicalization" of mental illness and the various treatment modalities are offshoots of the 19th century and the Industrial Revolution and that the so-called "medical model" for treating patients was a variation on the way trades- and craftsmen of the late 19th century repaired clocks and other mechanical objects: in the confines of a shop or store, contents and routine of which remained a mystery to the customer.
The book comprises four free-standing essays: On the Characteristics of Total Institutions, The Moral Career of the Mental Patient, The Underlife of a Public Institution and The Medical Model and Mental Hospitalization.
The first chapter, "Characteristics of Total Institutions," provides a comprehensive examination of social life within institutions, heavily citing two examples — mental asylums and prisons. This chapter outlines the topics to be elaborated on in subsequent chapters and their place within the overall discussion. The second chapter, "The Moral Career of the Mentally Ill," examines the preliminary impacts of "institutionalization" on the social relationships of those who have not yet become inmates. The third chapter, "The Underlife of Public Institutions," focuses on what people expect from inmates in terms of attachment to an institution that is supposed to be a fortress, as well as how inmates maintain some distance from these expectations. The fourth chapter, "Medical Models and Mental Hospitalization," shifts the focus back to institutional staff, using mental hospitals as an example to examine the role of medical viewpoints in presenting the situation to the inmates. Cited sources [1]
Asylums brought Goffman immediate recognition when it was published in 1961, and by the 1970s had become required reading in some introductory sociology courses, according to socialist author Peter Sedgwick, who considered the book a "powerful and compelling study" and the recognition it brought to Goffman "thoroughly deserved". [2]
After experiencing the mental illness of person close to him first-hand (presumably his first wife who committed suicide in 1964) Goffman remarked this book would have been "very different" had he written it after the experience. [3]
The book has been subject to a number of scholarly studies and responses. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified person to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hospital (inpatient) where they can be treated involuntarily. This treatment may involve the administration of psychoactive drugs, including involuntary administration. In many jurisdictions, people diagnosed with mental health disorders can also be forced to undergo treatment while in the community; this is sometimes referred to as outpatient commitment and shares legal processes with commitment.
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, or behavioral health hospitals are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, major depressive disorder, and others.
Anti-psychiatry, sometimes spelled antipsychiatry, is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionable effectiveness and harm associated with psychiatric medications, the failure of psychiatry to demonstrate any disease treatment mechanism for psychiatric medication effects, and legal concerns about equal human rights and civil freedom being nullified by the presence of diagnosis. Historical critiques of psychiatry came to light after focus on the extreme harms associated with electroconvulsive therapy or insulin shock therapy. The term "anti-psychiatry" is in dispute and often used to dismiss all critics of psychiatry, many of whom agree that a specialized role of helper for people in emotional distress may at times be appropriate, and allow for individual choice around treatment decisions.
Thomas Stephen Szasz was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, as what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as scientism.
Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born American sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century".
A total institution or residential institution is a place of work and residence where a great number of similarly situated people, cut off from the wider community for a considerable time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. Privacy is limited in total institutions, as all aspects of life including sleep, play, and work, are conducted in the same place. The concept is mostly associated with the work of sociologist Erving Goffman.
Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, race, socioeconomic class, age, sexual orientation, sexuality, body image, physical disability, intelligence or lack thereof, and health. Some stigma may be obvious, while others are known as concealable stigmas that must be revealed through disclosure. Stigma can also be against oneself, stemming from negatively viewed personal attributes in a way that can result in a "spoiled identity".
The Retreat, commonly known as the York Retreat, is a place in England for the treatment of people with mental health needs. Located in Lamel Hill in York, it operates as a not for profit charitable organisation.
Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly from religious or moral concerns. The movement is particularly associated with reform and development of the asylum system in Western Europe at that time. It fell into decline as a distinct method by the 20th century, however, due to overcrowding and misuse of asylums and the predominance of biomedical methods. The movement is widely seen as influencing certain areas of psychiatric practice up to the present day. The approach has been praised for freeing sufferers from shackles and barbaric physical treatments, instead considering such things as emotions and social interactions, but has also been criticised for blaming or oppressing individuals according to the standards of a particular social class or religion.
Deinstitutionalisation is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. In the late 20th century, it led to the closure of many psychiatric hospitals, as patients were increasingly cared for at home, in halfway houses and clinics, in regular hospitals, or not at all.
Medical model is the term coined by psychiatrist R. D. Laing in his The Politics of the Family and Other Essays (1971), for the "set of procedures in which all doctors are trained". It includes complaint, history, physical examination, ancillary tests if needed, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis with and without treatment.
The psychiatric survivors movement is a diverse association of individuals who either currently access mental health services, or who have experienced interventions by psychiatry that were unhelpful, harmful, abusive, or illegal.
Franco Basaglia was an Italian psychiatrist, neurologist, and professor, who proposed the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals, pioneer of the modern concept of mental health, Italian psychiatry reformer, figurehead and founder of Democratic Psychiatry, architect, and principal proponent of Law 180, which abolished mental hospitals in Italy. He is considered to be the most influential Italian psychiatrist of the 20th century.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, perceptions, and emotions.
In clinical and abnormal psychology, institutionalization or institutional syndrome refers to deficits or disabilities in social and life skills, which develop after a person has spent a long period living in mental hospitals, prisons or other remote institutions. In other words, individuals in institutions may be deprived of independence and of responsibility, to the point that once they return to "outside life" they are often unable to manage many of its demands; it has also been argued that institutionalized individuals become psychologically more prone to mental health problems.
The lunatic asylum, insane asylum or mental asylum was an institution where people with mental illness were confined. It was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
Morire di classe. La condizione manicomiale fotografata da Carla Cerati e Gianni Berengo Gardin, first published in 1969, is a polemical work about the conditions in Italian mental hospitals of the time, edited by Franco Basaglia and Franca Ongaro Basaglia and with black and white photographs by Carla Cerati and Gianni Berengo Gardin, an introduction by the Basaglias, and various other texts.
Transinstitutionalisation is the phenomenon where inmates released from one therapeutic community move into other institutions, either as planned move or as an unforeseen consequence. For instance, when the residential mental hospitals in the United States were closed as the result of a political policy change, the prison population increased by an equivalent number.
Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior is a 1967 book by Erving Goffman.
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