FROM BUGGING-OUT TO CHILLING-OUT - MANIPULATING EMOTION AND EVOKING REASON IN A FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIC-HOSPITAL

Ethnographic research in a forensic psychiatric hospital demonstrates a prevalent ambiguity about the relationship between emotion and reaso n and a suspicion that many inmate-patients are not mentally ill. None theless, central to the discourse and method of inmates and staff are skills in suppressing one's own emotions and in producing and manipula ting others' emotions. Drawing upon Foucault's insights, the author su ggests that practices in American penal and forensic psychiatric conte xts shed light on the wider culture's surreptitious ideologies of emot ion and interpersonal dynamics.