An extraordinary account of life behind the locked doors of a secure psychiatric ward from a nurse who worked there for seven years. Dennis O'Donnell started wo

Sanatorium, mental ward, psychiatric hospital - they're all the same. Places where the infirm, the crazy, and the certifiable go for treatment... Or what passes

A total institution is defined by Goffman as a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated, individuals, cut off from the wider society fo