When reading the works of both Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman, together they give a delineation of the discourse of madness. This essay delves into both of these renowned sociologists, in an attempt to explore both Michel Foucault’s finding on the treatment of the insane and Erving Goffman’s work on asylums.
It begins with a very deep and archival aspect on Foucault’s part; where close attention was paid to the evolution of language, words and the view of the mad. Foucault studied and researched in a more genealogical and archeological perspective, as he looked at the mad from inception. He focused on society as a whole and saw madness at the macro level, thereby researching society’s changing views and the interactions and treatments the patients received from the administration of these mental hospitals.
Foucault as a post structuralist was very interested and invested in studying society, more specifically the constant changing of knowledge and how society as a whole viewed other individuals within that society. This was done by grouping these individuals into unsavory categories; these categories were developed based on the acts or ideas of these individuals which were seen as being against the “norm”. Within the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, these categories of people were comprised of the prostitutes, vagabonds, beggars, criminals and the mad; they were confined to institutions all across Europe.
With this “Great Confinement,” Foucault looked closely at the distinctions which were developed to distinguish between madness and sanity within the Age of Reason. He debunked these distinctions in more detail in his paper “Madness and Unreason: History of Madness in the Classical Age” (Foucault, 1961) After acquiring ...
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Goffman, Erving. Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Aldine Transaction, 1968.
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Perhaps no other event in modern history has left us so perplexed and dumbfounded than the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, an entire population was simply robbed of their existence. In “Our Secret,” Susan Griffin tries to explain what could possibly lead an individual to execute such inhumane acts to a large group of people. She delves into Heinrich Himmler’s life and investigates all the events leading up to him joining the Nazi party. In“Panopticism,” Michel Foucault argues that modern society has been shaped by disciplinary mechanisms deriving from the plague as well as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a structure with a tower in the middle meant for surveillance. Susan Griffin tries to explain what happened in Germany through Himmler’s childhood while Foucault better explains these events by describing how society as a whole operates.
Before Kirkbride's standardized methods for mental hospitals, those with mental illness suffered crude and inhuman treatment. Beginning in Colonial America society, people suffering from mental illness were referred to as lunatics. Colonists viewed lunatics as being possessed by the devil, and usually were removed from societ...
Madness: A History, a film by the Films Media Group, is the final installment of a five part series, Kill or Cure: A History of Medical Treatment. It presents a history of the medical science community and it’s relationship with those who suffer from mental illness. The program uses original manuscripts, photos, testimonials, and video footage from medical archives, detailing the historical progression of doctors and scientists’ understanding and treatment of mental illness. The film compares and contrasts the techniques utilized today, with the methods of the past. The film offers an often grim and disturbing recounting of the road we’ve taken from madness to illness.
3. Foucault argues in the conclusion that discipline is not just about control—it also produces new kinds of knowledge. He cites the rise of psychiatry and clinical medicine as examples. Apply Foucault’s ideas to your everyday life. How has discipline and surveillance produced who you are today and your ability to take action?
The Challenges Of Nineteenth-Century Asylum Psychiatry In North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review 86.1 (2009): 32-58. Academic Search Elite. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Through the use of insanity as a metaphor, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, William Blake, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, introduced us to characters and stories that illustrate the path to insanity from the creation of a weakened psychological state that renders the victim susceptible to bouts of madness, the internalization of stimuli that has permeated the human psyche resulting in the chasm between rational and irrational thought, and the consequences of the effects of the psychological stress of external stimuli demonstrated through the actions of their characters.
What is madness? Is madness a brain disorder or a chemical imbalance? On the other hand, is it an expressed behavior that is far different from what society would believe is "normal"? Lawrence Durrell addresses these questions when he explores society's response to madness in his short story pair "Zero and Asylum in the Snow," which resembles the nearly incoherent ramblings of a madman. In these stories, Durrell portrays how sane, or lucid, people cannot grasp and understand the concept of madness. This inability to understand madness leads society to fear behavior that is different from "normal," and subsequently, this fear dictates how they deal with it. These responses include putting a name to what they fear and locking it up in an effort to control it. Underlying all, however, Durrell repeatedly raises the question: who should define what is mad?
For many decades the mentally ill or insane have been hated, shunned, and discriminated against by the world. They have been thrown into cruel facilities, said to help cure their mental illnesses, where they were tortured, treated unfairly, and given belittling names such as retards, insane, demons, and psychos. However, reformers such as Dorothea Dix thought differently of these people and sought to help them instead. She saw the inhumanity in these facilities known as insane asylums or mental institutions, and showed the world the evil that wandered inside these asylums. Although movements have been made to improve conditions in insane asylums, and were said to help and treat the mentally ill, these brutally abusive places were full of disease and disorder, and were more like concentration camps similar to those in Europe during WWII than hospitals.
Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America. Dir. Sarah Mondale. Stone Lantern Films, Inc. 1988. Film.
Scull, Andrew. “The Social History of Psychiatry in the Victorian Era.” In Madhouses, Mad-doctors and Madmen, edited by Andrew Scull, 5-35. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.
Berger, Lisa and Alexander Vuckovic. Under Observation: Life Inside a Psychiatric Hospital. New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1994.
The controversial topic of insanity manifests itself commonly in Romantic writing, and has been one much disputed over time. Some say that people who seem crazy are so above our own level of thought and understanding that we can’t possibly begin to identify with them and that we can find genius in the form of ordinary lunatics who connect to God and divinity in ways “normal” people don’t comprehend. Throughout works such as “The Cask of Amontillado and “The Castaway”, the authors question insanity with ideas that show the possible outcomes when one looks deep inside themselves for a divine spark or intuition. Both of these stories address madness in different forms, and madness itself is Godly experiences gone wrong; the person who receives the divine vision is unable to handle its raw truth.
Goffman, E (1991). Asylums- Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates. London: Penguin. p4.
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
History shows that signs of mental illness and abnormal behavior have been documented as far back as the early Greeks however, it was not viewed the same as it is today. The mentally ill were previously referred to as mad, insane, lunatics, or maniacs. W.B. Maher and B.A. Maher (1985) note how many of the terms use had roots in old English words that meant emotionally deranged, hurt, unhealthy, or diseased. Although early explanations were not accurate, the characteristics of the mentally ill have remained the same and these characteristics are used to diagnose disorders to date. Cultural norms have always been used to assess and define abnormal behavior. Currently, we have a decent understanding of the correlates and influences of mental illness. Although we do not have complete knowledge, psychopathologists have better resources, technology, and overall research skills than those in ancient times.