Erving Goffman's Presentation Of Self In Everyday Life

this thinking has been perverted by the propagation of ideas about contagion, dangerous, unpredictability, and lack of willpower, which are at the core of today’s prejudices against mental patients. (Guiman, pp. 21-22)

In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) focuses on the self as a staged production in which people actively present themselves to different audiences one encounters. To bolster his conceptualization, Goffman used an interesting metaphor of “all the world’s a stage” (1959, 254). This, he terms as a “dramaturgical approach” (Goffman 1959, 240) in which an actor puts on a show for others; drawing analogies between human behaviors and the theater. Goffman (1959) likens the individual to an actor on stage performing for and with other individuals involved in the situation. Three types of space exist for the actor to perform on, to enact the self, and to interact with others: the front stage, the backstage, the outer region. Goffman (1959) utilizes specific dramaturgical terms such as performance, teams, front and back regions, sign-vehicles, and highlights the process of dramatic realization. These terms will be discussed in the following sections.

In “Presentations of Self in Everyday Life,” Goffman is constantly explaining how everyday life is a dramaturgy. A dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and essentially the production of a theatrical play. A social situation is much like a play. Every play has a stage, actors, a script, a set, rehearsals, and practices. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the encounter, the script is the social norms of the social encounter, and the set is the environment where the encounter takes place. It takes practices and

Self-pity and pessimistic attitudes remain a topic of discussion with a mentally ill patient, however the more valuable picture revolves around the stigma that the public holds towards those with a mental illness. Unrun Ozer, member of International Committee of National Journal Editors, acknowledges that, “Stigmatization is described as attributing someone in a way that would decrease the person’s reputation because the individual strays away from the general norms of the society” ( 225). Ozer clarifies that a stigma is an unfavorable viewpoint that society has on someone that is perceived as different. Those with a mental illness are susceptible to vulnerability because they are at a small disadvantage than the normal person. Negative connotations, such as adverse viewpoints and perplexing labels, affect the care and treatment process of those suffering because their compliance to treatment decreases. Society is too quick to judge and be ignorant if someone isn’t in perfect form, and Ozer reports, “ It has been reported that individuals with mental illnesses are seen by the society as dangerous, frightening, unstable, irresponsible, unpredictable, and having communication problems” (Ozer 225). Ozer declares that these labels are degrading to an individual with a mental illness, and cause feelings of introversion, decreased self-confidence, worthlessness, shame and despair. If we want happiness to be achievable for all, then criticizing individuals is a step in the wrong

Functionalist Erving Goffman studies the sociological approach of Dramaturgy in his book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’ (Goffman, 1959), he built his theory based on earlier work completed by Kenneth Burke. However there are distinct differences in features of the theory between Burke and Goffman as Burke believed that life was in fact a literal

The conditions of psychiatric hospitals were poorly maintained yet again. From the late 1800s until the mid-1900s, the conditions of these institutions were hit or miss. Despite the rising population of those in need of mental health treatment, conditions were deteriorating across the board. This pushed in the deinstitutionalization movement (Nevid, Rathus, & Green, 2014). This was a push to remove patients from state-run hospitals into a more community-based treatment center. In most cases today, there are treatment plans in place depending upon the severity of the disorder an individual may be suffering from. It’s more about treating an individual with any variety of modern techniques or therapies and trying to reintegrate them into society rather than a lifelong stay in an institution. Deinstitutionalization didn’t work the way it was intended. After it was put into place there was a rise in the homeless population and different programs that were supposed to be put into place didn’t live up to

Over time, social norms and collective standards have lessened in value. In modern society, diversity and self-identity are seen as more desirable as opposed to fitting a particular mould that is defined by what is normal. Although, looking back about fifty years, this wasn’t the case. The societal focus was more directed towards an overall collective standard. Often times, when an individual felt as if they abnormal when compared to the average person in society, they simply accepted it and seeked refuge in an institution such as a mental institution. In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, many of the patients in the mental institution were staying voluntarily due to the overwhelming pressure radiating from society outside the asylum. This external pressure from their ”inability to adjust to society,”(pg 167) took a toll on their self-perception, convincing themselves that treatment was required. Those who are perceived as being a leader have a strong influence on others and can alter the self-perception of many individuals; Kesey shows the patients using this new self-perception to seek social conformity. Once the self confidence of an individual has diminished, the introduction of a new perspective can reverse these effects, build a sense of self-acceptance and, therefore, introduce a cure.

First, observations of patients that spend a substantial amount of time in a hospital prove that one develops institutionalism. This is a syndrome characterized by lack of initiative, apathy, withdrawal, submissiveness to authority, and excessive dependence on the institution (Website 3). It has also been found that some of these reactions caused by external stimulation are qualities of the disease itself. One of the most important factors, that was disregarded by the simple minded individuals who helped bring about deinstitutionalization, is what left these mentally ill people unable to work, support themselves, cope with community, and ideally make them feel somewhat like a member of the community. These findings definitely support the drift theory, which states that upper class mentally ill will drift downward into lower class neighborhoods. This class transition then increases the rate of mental illness in that neighborhood.

Bachrach, the author of dozens of articles on mental health, reports on the development deinstitutionalization in “Deinstitutionalisation: promises, problems and prospects” (1995). Bachrach argues that deinstitutionalization is not a perfect solution to the problem of the treatment of PMI and supports her argument with discussions about both the drawbacks and “positive legacy” of deinstitutionalization. She explains that deinstitutionalization has three parts: the release of patients into the community, the diversion of possible new patients and the development of newer community programs; Bachrach logically explains that the last process is “particularly important” because it impacts the entirety of the patients new independent life in the community. Multiple sources remarked that the third step of deinstitutionalization had not been properly handled (SOURCES?), one author going so far as to call the last step, and deinstitutionalization as a whole, an “abject failure” (Kara, 2014). While the author supports this claim with the consequences that things such as the lack of community resources has had on the population of PMI, she does not concede any of the positive outcomes of deinstitutionalization making her argument somewhat one sided. The article explains that while institutions began closing, “hundreds of vulnerable people were displaced” to communities that were not properly equipped to support them. An article from the Canadian Mental Health Association website by Diana Ballon supports this claim with a more concrete figure stating that since 1950s and 60s and the beginnings of deinstitutionalization there has been “the closure of almost 80 percent of beds in psychiatric hospitals” (n.d.). This increase of PMI living in communities with a lack of proper housing lead to a disproportionally large number of PMI being homeless or living in poverty which “greatly increase[s] the odds of PMI

In today’s society, mental hospitals are still a potential solution for the mentally ill, but they are seeing a steady decline in incoming patients. Although there is still a need for the mentally ill to be admitted to mental institutions such as hospitals, the reality is that the heightened cost of treatment deters many potential patients. Instead, the mentally

Although the 19th century expansion of asylums in Europe and The United States was a movement initially based on moral principles, it led to significant negative implications for individuals, who were institutionalized as asylums became overcrowded, lacking hygiene, neglectful of patients and an overall place for poor living conditions (Wright, 1997). The rise in in-patient population in the early 19th century and patients’ inabilities to reintegrate into the community as a result of institutionalization have often been explained in terms of the mental health system and developments in psychology at the time. Sociologists on the other hand, have argued that these institutions have caused people to remain institutionalized. A compelling

The mentally ill population in society is an oppressed group of individuals because they are powerlessness, exploited and marginalized. Powerless because of the inhibitions against the development of their capacity, the lack of power in decision making and the disrespect that they faced because of their status (Mullaly 2010, p. 37). Individuals will often stare, point, make negative ignorant statements and devalue the mentally ill because they behave in a different manner from the rest of society. They are oppressed on the personal and the structural level because of the inequities experienced, which in turn cause them disproportionate levels and incidences of stress, anguish, frustration, alienation, exclusions and a higher mortality rate (Mullaly 2010, p.153). Being incarcerated is also a form of oppression because they are a group that is segregated from the general population, denied specific rights and have

It is no secret that roughly half of the inmate population within the correctional system and the criminal justice system suffer from some form of mental illness or mental disorder. The court systems are currently treating correctional facilities more like psychiatric institutions. Because of this, society has formed stigmatizations around the correctional system and the individuals within it. There is a collective on beliefs and values about mental illness within society and their stigmatizations. This paper will demonstrate an understanding of these stigmatizations and the impact it has not only on the individual, but the corrections system in how to deal with the individual and their mental illness.

Course Video Critique 4: The New Asylums Summary: In the video, “The New Asylums,” explains the ever growing problem of mentally ill inmates are entering in prisons as the solution rather than mental hospitals. Prisons remain the only solution for the mentally ill due to the ability to keep them from harming the community or being involved in criminal activity. Unlike normal inmates, sometimes mentally ill inmates may refuse to cooperate with the prison officials and thus force may be required to put them into submission.

Erving Goffman was a sociologist known for developing the symbolic interaction and dramaturgical theory perspective. The dramaturgical theory is a social psychological perspective that studies human behavior and social interaction in terms of the analogy of the theater. This perspective is also related to symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a theory based on interaction and communication, facilitated by many different words, gestures, and other symbols that have acquired various meanings. Dramaturgical theorist focus on how people manipulate various aspects of themselves and their settings to influence how others define and respond to them. In this perspective, “the self” is constructed of the various roles that one acquires, in order to present their various selves in ways that sustain particular impressions to their audiences. “The self” is a private possession established in and reflective of an individual’s personality, which includes ones values, beliefs, motives, traits, and dispositions. In addition, a person’s “self” is acquired through social relationships and is a structurally fundamental process that may change due to various situations. As humans interact with one another they are placed in social categories based on their attributes and actions. These assessments are primarily based on ones knowledge of roles.