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 depends on the institution. For example, in religious institutions, inmates seek out ways to subject their personalities to that of a higher power. In prisons or concentration camps, the inmates are forced to lose their sense of self so that they can be easily manipulated by the institution management. In other institutions, such as the military, the inmates are subjected to loss of self for security reasons or preparation for combat readiness.
One of t...