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Pastoral Psychol (2016) 65:103126 DOI 10.1007/s11089-015-0665-1
Donald Capps1
Published online: 20 June 2015# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract In this article I summarize the main points in the first two essays in Erving Goffmans Asylums, published in 1961, which is based on his field work at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. in 195556. The first essay presents his concept of total institutions. The second focuses on the mortification of the self that one experiences during the pre-patient and patient phases. Although these essays reflect observations that were made some 60 years ago, his analysis of what happens to the mental patient in the hospital environment is still relevant, especially for seminary students whose CPE field work takes place in the mental hospital setting. This article also provides the basis for a follow-up article on William F. Lynchs (1965) Images of Hope, which he wrote during his residence at St. Elizabeths Hospital in the early 1960s.
Keywords Erving Goffman . Total institutions . Disculturation . Role dispossession . Career contingencies . Self mortification . Re-socialization . Moral loosening
Introduction
In my article on John Hinckley (Capps 2013) I alluded to my personal interest in his recent appeal for eventual release from St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. in order to be with his mother who lives in Williamsburg, Virginia. He had been committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital on June 21, 1982, on grounds that his attempt to assassinate President Reagan was due to the fact that he was suffering from a mental illness. My personal interest in his appeal was related to my having done a basic unit of CPE at St. Elizabeths Hospital in 1961 and, more specifically, my interest that summer in what were then called White House cases, i.e., patients who had attempted to assassinate a president of the United States.
* Donald Capps [email protected]
1 Princeton Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 821, Princeton, NJ 08542-0803, USA
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104 Pastoral Psychol (2016) 65:103126
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