Anthony Giddens describes Goffman's use of Participant Observation in the following terms:

"Goffman managed to see the asylum from the patients' point of view rather than in terms of the medical categories applied to them by psychiatrists.

'It is my belief', he wrote, 'that any group of persons, primitives, pilots or patients, develop a life of their own that becomes meaningful, reasonable and normal once you get close to it'.

His work indicates that what looks "insane" to an outside observer is not irrational when seen in the context of the hospital. Asylums involve forms of discipline, dress and behaviour that make it almost impossible for inmates to behave like people in the outside world.".