[D66] Asylums - Erving Goffman

[R.O.]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Asylums_%28book%29.jpg

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/61103/asylums-by-erving-goffman/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylums_(book)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_institution
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.2307/2090043


    Summary


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.


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