Cechy procesu degradacji osobowości w placówkach leczenia uzależnień w świetle koncepcji instytucji totalnej Ervinga Goffmana; wnioski z badań
The features of personality degradation process in addiction treatment centers in the light of Erving Goffman’s concept of total institution; research

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the paper is to describe selected aspects of the reality of addiction treatment centers in reference to the characteristics of total institution as proposed 50 years ago by Ervin Goffman in his “Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and other Inmates”. The main issue in discussion is the degradation of personality. The data used for the purposes of the paper was collected during the qualitatively designed study, in three intramural centers providing treatment to addicted individuals. In total, 45 interviews with patients and therapists have been conducted. As it stems from the respondents’ answers, several features of total institution may be found in today’s addiction treatment centers, this despite multi-year efforts undertaken to lessen the therapy regime. The main purpose of such centers is to transform patients’ personalities as guided by the institutional aims determined by social expectations. In the course of the therapy, the process of status degradation is underway with the view, among all, of depriving the patient of defense possibilities against accepting the identity imposed by the institution. Nonetheless, the patients of addiction treatment centers assess positively therapy objectives and speak well about their relations with the staff, which may be surprising in the light of Goffman’s concept. One of possible interpretation is that their behavior is driven by one of strategies of adaptation to the reality of total institution, described by the sociologist as conversion.

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