Care homes: institutionalisation, dehumanisation and the corruption of identity – Maggie Sumner and Lee Smith

Tuesday 15th October 2019

Care homes:  institutionalisation, dehumanisation and the corruption of identity – Maggie Sumner and Lee Smith

Maggie will speak from her experience of living in a care home for a year having been diagnosed with cancer. Drawing on concepts such as the ‘total institution’ (Erving Goffman, Asylums, 1961) and ‘the pains of imprisonment’ (Gresham Sykes, The Society of Captives, 1958), Maggie and Lee will look at the psychological impact of incarceration and the way in which it resembles the effects of care homes (as well as care at home), bringing about processes of institutionalisation, dehumanisation and the corruption of identity.

 

Maggie Sumner has a background in criminology, most recently as an academic. She retired from the University of Westminster in 2011 where she was head of Department for Social and Historical Studies.

Lee Smith is a Psychoanalyst working in private practice and Director of Kingsmith Care, a domiciliary care company in West London.