Institutional syndrome

In clinical and abnormal psychology, institutionalization or institutional syndrome refers to deficits or disabilities in social and life skills, which develop after a person has spent a long period living in mental hospitals, prisons or other remote institutions. In other words, individuals in institutions may be deprived (whether unintentionally or not) of independence and of responsibility, to the point that once they return to "outside life" they are often unable to manage many of its demands; it has also been argued that institutionalized individuals become psychologically more prone to mental health problems. The term institutionalization can also be used to describe the process of committing an individual to a mental hospital or prison, or to describe institutional syndrome; thus the phrase "X is institutionalized" may mean either that X has been placed in an institution or that X is suffering the psychological effects of having been in an institution for an extended period of time. In Europe and North America, the trend of putting the mentally ill into mental hospitals began as early as the 17th century, and hospitals often focused more on "restraining" or controlling inmates than on curing them, although hospital conditions improved somewhat with movements for human treatment, such as moral management. By the mid-20th century, overcrowding in institutions, the failure of institutional treatment to cure most mental illnesses, and the advent of drugs such as Thorazine prompted many hospitals to begin discharging patients in large numbers, in the beginning of the deinstitutionalization movement (the process of gradually moving people from inpatient care in mental hospitals, to outpatient care). Deinstitutionalization did not always result in better treatment, however, and in many ways it helped reveal some of the shortcomings of institutional care, as discharged patients were often unable to take care of themselves, and many ended up homeless or in jail.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (1)

Related concepts (3)

Lunatic asylum

The lunatic asylum or insane asylum was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry. While there were earlier institutions that housed the "insane", the conclusion that institutionalization was the correct solution to treating people considered to be "mad" was part of a social process in the 19th century that began to seek solutions outside of families and local communities.

Deinstitutionalisation

Deinstitutionalisation (or deinstitutionalization) is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. In the late 20th century, it led to the closure of many psychiatric hospitals, as patients were increasingly cared for at home, in halfway houses and clinics, in regular hospitals, or not at all. Deinstitutionalisation works in two ways.

Psychiatric hospital

Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals or behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder and many others. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialize only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients.

L’espace de l’institutionnalisation ludique : le tournoi d’échecs comme lieu de négociation de la norme ludique

Manoug Jérémie Borzakian

While sociology and history have consistently studied institutionalization, two questions have remained untouched: first, games of combinations, like chess, have been touched by this very institutionalization process, like sports; second, space is a central part of institutionalization, as its medium as well as its tool of reproduction. Based on an inquiry through interviews, this article intends to show the way players react to the restrictive nature of the tournament spatial organization and, more specifically, to the symbolic violence of institutionalization, which expresses itself especially in and through space.

2012