Erving Goffman's Asylums

Reading Erving Goffman's Asylums helps the reader become more sensitive to the needs of mentally ill patients. Unfortunately mental illness has a serious stigma in society. This stigma is evident in the humiliating slang language that is used to describe mental instititions: terms such as "nuthouse" "funny farm" or "loony bin." Goffman takes the reader inside such institutions, and discusses their similarity to other institutionalized settings, e.g., prisons, monasteries, and concentration camps. In many ways, the behavior of the patient in a particular institution is dictated by the bureaucratic operation of the institution itself.

Mental institutions are "total institutions," places where a basic split exists between inmates and staff. The social distance between these two groups is only eliminated in rare circumstances: "Two different social and cultural worlds develop, jogging alongside each other with points of official contact but little mutual penetration" (Goffman, 1961, p. 9). In the mental hospital, support staff act as mediators between physicians and inmates.

In total institutions, direct assaults are made on the inmate's personhood. These assaults include disfigurement, defilement, and mortification: "Whatever the form or the source of these various indignities, the individual has to engage in activity whose symbolic implications are incompatible with his conception of self" (Goffman, 1961, p. 23). The purpose of the degradation of the individual

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sonal belongings. The underlife of the public institution is characterized by certain standard types of relationships. One is the buddy relationship, where individuals collude out of mutual concern in a non-sexual nature. Another is the dating relationship, involving two persons, usually of the opposite sex. Clique relationships involving three or more persons also evolve, as do categoric relations between any two inmates who exhibited mutual regard. Lastly, patron relationships also developed between staff and inmates. As Goffman (1961) puts it, "Social exchanges in the hospital were characterized by the meager resources the patients had for expressing mutual regard and extending mutual aid" (p. 280). The role of cigarettes in the bonding formations of the mental hospital was interesting to note. Cigarettes are a treasured commodity: "A full treatment of the role of cigarettes, however, takes us beyond the private bonds of buddies and clique mates to a consideration of patient status as such . . . " (Goffman, 1961, p. 282). Allowing a fellow inmate to take a hit off your cigarette is considered a common courtesy. Distinctions are made between tailor-made cigarettes and hand-rolled smokes, the former being preferable

Category: Psychology - E