ABSTRACT
This chapter defines a mental patient as Erving Goffman does—not as a person suffering from the limitations imposed by a specific mental illness, recognized as such by society, but simply as someone who has been confined to a mental hospital. It depends on whether he has been able to construct a social and psychological world that will support him and allow him to function adequately in the outside world. In short, these mental patients lived in, or with, the kinds of families that make up the hard core of social case work—disrupted, problem-ridden, often apparently hopeless. Everyone carries with him an interpretation of the world, based on his perceptions and interactions. His interpretation covers what the world seems to be telling him about himself, his glories and sins, how others judge him and the bases on which to judge himself.
