Asylums af Erving Goffman (Bog)

Forfatter: Erving Goffman

Sprog: Engelsk

Antal sider: 336

Forlag: Penguin UK

Udgivelsesår: 1991

"Asylums" is an analysis of life in "total institutions"--closed worlds like prisons, army camps, boarding schools, nursing homes and mental hospitals. It focuses on the relationship between the inmate and the institution, how the setting affects the person and how the person can deal with life on the inside.

Titel: Asylums

Genre: Faglitteratur

Sammendrag: What really goes on in a mental hospital? Are asylums genuine havens of rest from the pressures of society, or can they create even more crippling tensions in those already disturbed? How do mental patients adjust to their new life? And are their adjustments so very different from the reactions of members of other ‘total institutions’ such as army camps, monasteries, prisons and boarding schools?

These four controversial essays explore the various types of closed community, all of which seek to mould their inmates to some socially approved purpose. In this survey, which is now a landmark study, the author was more concerned to interpret the experience of the patients than to justify the system that contains them. His first essay is a general portrait of life in a total institution; the other three consider special aspects of this existence: the sense of betrayal and loss of identity which afflicts the new patient; the flourishing underlife of prisons and hospitals by which inmates retain some self-respect; and the role of the staff in presenting to the inmate their view of his or her situation.

Type: Paperback