Understanding the past

2.5 Summary

In this opening part of the unit you have had an opportunity to find out about a particular form of care provision and to explore this with the help of images and information about how it worked. You have also been introduced to Goffman?s idea of the total institution as a way to explain how people learn to live with regimes and in settings they did not choose for themselves.

You have heard about the policies and philosophies that were used to justify the building of large institutions and how these ideas were carried out by means of physical and social segregation of residents, as well as by strict rules controlling their behaviour. You saw Howard Mitchell searching through various kinds of documents, including records of visitors, escapes and punishments. These tell us a certain amount, but what about the people who lived and worked there? What can we learn from what they have to say? You will be able to explore this further as you work through the next section of this unit.

Key points

• Lennox Castle Hospital might be said to be an example of a ‘total institution?.
• ‘Total institutions? are characterised by ‘batch living?, ‘binary management?, ‘the inmate role? and ‘the institutional perspective?.
• Large institutions of this type were a common form of provision, in the late nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century, for people with learning disabilities.
• Segregation from society was thought to be appropriate (and was based on the theory of eugenics).
• The lives of people who lived and worked in such institutions tended to lack individuality and were determined by rules and practices which were coercive and sometimes cruel.

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