Why it matters
Shows how much of who we are depends on props and privacies we rarely notice having.
Core term · Erving Goffman
Total Institutions
Places — asylums, prisons, barracks — where life is lived entirely inside one authority, and the old self is stripped away.
Areas of life
Institutionsidentityfreedom
How to handle it
Ask what small things keep you feeling like yourself.
Who shaped this idea
The thinker behind it
From concept to practice
Turn Total Institutions into a question you can answer.
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.