This paper examines the structural similarities between jails, schools, and hospitals as instruments of state coercion, drawing on Goffman's analysis of total institutions [1], Szasz's critique of psychiatric power [2], and Foucault's genealogy of disciplinary mechanisms [3,4].

Through comparative institutional analysis, we demonstrate how these ostensibly distinct domains operate through parallel techniques of surveillance, normalization, and bodily control that systematically strip individuals of agency while producing docile subjects. Building on contemporary critical scholarship this analysis argues for the urgent need to develop alternative therapeutic spaces that transcend the coercive logic of institutional medicine.

The paper concludes by outlining principles for transformative healing environments that honor human dignity, agency, and the integration of mind, body, and spirit.