Perspectives on Erving Goffman’s “Asylums” fifty years on

• Published in: Medicine, health care, and philosophy Vol. 16; no. 3; pp. 605 - 613
• Main Authors: Adlam, John, Gill, Irwin, Glackin, Shane N., Kelly, Brendan D., Scanlon, Christopher, Mac Suibhne, Seamus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2013; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anniversaries; Bioethics; Citizenship; Education; Ethics; Goffman; History, 20th Century; Hospitals; Hospitals, Psychiatric - history; Hospitals, Psychiatric - organization & administration; Institutionalization - history; Medical Law; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mental Disorders - therapy; Mental health; Philosophers; Philosophy; Philosophy of Biology; Philosophy of Medicine; Psychiatrists; Psychiatry; Psychiatry - history; Short Communication; Sovereignty; Theory of Medicine/Bioethics; United States; United States; United Kingdom > UK; Ireland; Asylums; Hospitals; Institutionalisation; Psychiatry; Mental illness; Mental health
• ISSN: 1386-7423; 1572-8633
• DOI: 10.1007/s11019-012-9410-z

Erving Goffman’s “Asylums” is a key text in the development of contemporary, community-orientated mental health practice. It has survived as a trenchant critique of the asylum as total institution, and its publication in 1961 in book form marked a further stage in the discrediting of the asylum model of mental health care. In this paper, some responses from a range of disciplines to this text, 50 years on, are presented. A consultant psychiatrist with a special interest in cultural psychiatry and mental health legislation, two collaborating psychotherapists in adult and forensic mental health, a philosopher, and a recent medical graduate, present their varying responses to the text. The editors present these with the hope of encouraging further dialogue and debate from service users, carers, clinicians, and academics and researchers across a range of disciplines.