, in a recent book review in this journal, wrote that 'It is now nearly 50 years since the action-research sociologist Erving Goffman turned his insider-view daily notes into a devastating critique of the realities of mental hospital life. Back then, sociologists and psychotherapists were natural allies rallying to the flag of community psychiatry, united in opposition to the hegemonic medical model'. Now, however, according to Holmes 'all has changed. Neuropsychiatry rules; Asylums (1961) lies unread; the few remaining sociologists are in search of new targets for radical assault'.

Erving Goffman's "Asylums" is a key text in the development of contemporary, community-orientated mental health practice. It has survived as a trenchant critique of the asylum as total institution, and its publication in 1961 in book form marked a further stage in the discrediting of the asylum model of mental health care. In this paper, some responses from a range of disciplines to this text, 50 years on, are presented. A consultant psychiatrist with a special interest in cultural psychiatry and mental health legislation, two collaborating psychotherapists in adult and forensic mental health, a philosopher, and a recent medical graduate, present their varying responses to the text. The editors present these with the hope of encouraging further dialogue and debate from service users, carers, clinicians, and academics and researchers across a range of disciplines.