''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.

Summary

Based on his participant observation

field work Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct f ...

(he was employed as a physical therapist's assistant under a grant from the

National Institute of Mental Health The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the prima ...

at a

mental institution Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...

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), Goffman details his theory of the "

total institution A total 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 ...

" (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 A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indivi ...

, 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 Medicalization is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment. Medicalization can be driven by new evid ...

" of mental illness and the various treatment modalities are offshoots of the 19th century and the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

and that the so-called "

medical model ''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 examinatio ...

" 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''.

Reception

''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 Peter Harold Sedgwick (9 March 1934 – c. 8 September 1983) was a translator of Victor Serge, author of a number of books including ''PsychoPolitics'' and a revolutionary socialist activist. Life Peter Sedgwick grew up in Liverpool and won a sc ...

, who considered the book a "powerful and compelling study" and the recognition it brought to Goffman "thoroughly deserved".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asylums (Book) 1961 non-fiction books Anti-psychiatry books Books about psychiatric hospitals Books by Erving Goffman English-language books Sociology books Essay collections Books about social constructionism Symbolic interactionism Anchor Books books

Summary

Reception

See also

References