Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates

Book details

Author of listed edition: Erving Goffman

Edition: 1961 edition; later reprints carry the same or related catalogue identifiers

Publisher: Anchor Books / Doubleday

Edition year: 1961

Language and origin: English (Canada / United States)

Form and genre: Cultural & Historical Critique

Level: Intermediate

Historical era: 1960–1979 · Humanistic, Cognitive & Systemic Turn

Covers: The concept of a total institution; Institutional routines and social roles; Adaptations and relationships within institutions

APA 7th reference: Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Anchor Books.

What it is & historical context

Published in 1961, Asylums brings together essays on institutional life. The publisher describes a year of fieldwork at St Elizabeths Hospital and identifies mental hospitals as a principal focus.

Core clinical themes & arguments

Goffman used the concept of a total institution to discuss settings where many aspects of daily life are organised together. His account considers institutional routines and the ways people respond to them. It is a sociological interpretation, not an explanation of every person’s condition.

Clinical practice, reception & legacy

The book has been read in discussions of institutions and power. Its account should be considered in its historical context, rather than treated as a description of every contemporary service.

Reader level & educational scope

This intermediate entry offers historical orientation. The publisher description and catalogue records were consulted, not the complete book. The related Rosenhan paper and its later investigation require careful reading; the original research records were not reviewed.

Paired academic and clinical scholarship

Paired work: On Being Sane in Insane Places (David L. Rosenhan, 1973)

Reference: Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179(4070), 250–258.

Rosenhan’s 1973 paper examined psychiatric labelling using reported admissions. Later archival investigations have challenged aspects of its account.

Source-mapped claims and evidence notes

Claim 1: Goffman described how institutional routines shape daily life and social roles. (The publisher description summarises the book’s thesis; it does not establish that all institutions or experiences are alike.) [Source 1: Penguin Random House. Asylums: Publisher description.]

Claim 2: Rosenhan reported a study involving people admitted to psychiatric hospitals, but later archival investigations questioned aspects of the account. (Stanford’s review describes the subsequent challenge; the original research records were not independently examined for this entry.) [Source 3: Stanford University. Science correcting itself: Replication failures.]

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