es that an inmate goes through to deny that he or she has finally reached the end of the proverbial rope by becoming institutionalized. During the initial stages after admission, the inmate may withdraw from interacting with staff, fellow inmates, or visitors. At this point, the inmate is still clinging to remnants of his or her past. Once a patient settles into institutional life, he or she often creates social fictions about the circumstances surrounding his or her confinement: "With greater familiarity, each patient usually volunteers relatively acceptable reasons for his hospitalization, at the same time accepting without open immediate question the lines offered by other patients" (Goffman, 1961, p. 152). For instance, some inmates contend that they were institutionalized because of mistaken diagnoses or attribute their mental problems to social environment. Most mental patients delude themselves into believing that their confinement is only temporary, and persist in defining themselves by an occupational status that they coveted when they were on
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