Goffman’s concept – Total Institutions – are places such as prisons that separate the person from society. This leads to the soc
ial self eroding and the individual’s identity becoming defined by the nature of the total institution. The process of the eroding of the social self is called:
Mortification to self or self mortification is the practice in which inmate is punished degraded or humiliated so that they can be segregated from their individual personality. They have to undergo such treatments when the inmate is in patient phase.
This process is carried so that identity of the person can be displayed through institution's nature and has no trace of society otr any other factor according to the theory of Goffman.
