本研究由北部某精神病院內的急性病房的考察開始，以精神病院內的精神病人為研究主體，將精神病院視作一個「劇場」，以在場域中活動者為「行動者」、「演員」(actor)，觀察行動者之間（病人與病人、病人與醫護人員）的互動與對話，透過對「表演」與「互動」的理解來說明在精神病院的醫療機構中，權力、疾病、與病人的角色是如何透過在病院內的例行活動，枝微末節的反覆操作而建立起來的；並以對「生活經驗」之關注描繪出病人之「不舒服經驗」在機構中的意義，藉著「病人」的「不舒服經驗」與「現實感」的呈現，重新檢討了現代社會對「瘋狂」的劃分及想像，使得問題深化至對「病人」之「存在」的意義的探討。
我企圖轉換一種新的觀點來說明並找出：「精神病人」與其說是代表了一種醫病共享的現實(reality)，不如說是代表了兩個截然不同的現實：一方所賦予的意義截然不同於另外一方所賦予的意義。而這樣的不同，透過病人與醫師對於病情、身體、治療、個人世界的不同觀點，以及意義構成的層次的不同來展現。

最後，同樣採用表演與舞台觀點，來檢視觀察者（研究者）在田野現場所處的位置問題，進行田野工作的反身性（reflexivity）思考，一方面是對人類學田野工作的方法論上的省思，另一方面，也是企圖對Goffman的表演研究中「我」的缺席，提出一些小小補充。

王紫君
1996 精神失常者之母親的身體觀及疾病觀：一個家庭個案的探析。輔仁大學應用心理研究所碩士論文，未出版。
朱元鴻
2000 我們活在不同的世界：社會學框作筆記。台北：唐山。
林文源
1998 TO BE OR NOT TO BE? -- 長期洗腎病患的生活、身體經驗。清華大學社會人類學研究所碩士論文，未出版。
林淑蓉
2000 「情緒、自我與精神疾病」，發表於「情感、情緒與文化」研討會，中央研究院民族學研究所主辦，2000年9月29∼30日。
范燕燕
2000 精神病患者生活經驗與主體性之研究。陽明大學衛生福利研究所碩士論文，未出版。
張珣
1989 疾病與文化。台北：稻鄉出版社。
栗山茂久著、陳信宏譯
2001 身體的語言：從中西文化看身體之謎（The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine）。台北：究竟出版社。
葉啟政
2000 「結構—行動」的困境：與當代西方社會學理論論述對話。台北：三民書局。
蕭幸伶
1997 帶「病」生活—一個精神病患家屬經驗之探究。輔仁大學應用心理學研究所碩士論文，未出版。
蕭淑貞
1994 疾病的聲音—青年精神分裂患者的疾病經驗之詮釋學研究。台灣大學護理研究所碩士論文，未出版。
American Psychiatry Association
1998 DSM－Ⅳ（精神疾病診斷準則手冊），孔繁鐘、孔繁錦編譯，台北：合記圖書出版社。
Arena, William R. and Bernard J.Bergen
1984 Medicine and the Management of Living：Taming the Last Great Beast. Chicago：University of Chicago Press.
Botterill, George and Carruthers, Peter
1999 The Philosophy of Psychology. U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre
1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Castillo, Richard J.
1996 Culture & Mental Illness: A Client-Centered Approach. New York: ITP(An International Thomson Publishing Company).
Estroff, Sue E.
1981 Normals, Crazies, Insiders, and Outsiders, in Making it Crazy.ch.7, pp.147-194. California: University of California Press.
Fernando, Suman
1988 Race and Culture in Psychiatry. London: Tavistock & Routledge.
Foucault, Michel
1992 瘋癲與文明 ( The Madness and Civilization )，劉北成、楊遠嬰譯，台北：桂冠。
1994 臨床醫學的誕生(Naissance de la clinique)，劉絮愷譯，台北：時報出版。
Foster, George M. and Anderson, Barbara Gallatin
1992 醫療人類學 ( Medical Anthropology )，陳華、黃新美譯，台北：桂冠。
Fulford, K.W.M.
1995 Mind and Madness: New Directions in the Philosophy of Psychiatry, in Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychiatry, Griffiths, A. Philips ed., pp.5-24. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Giddens, Anthony
1998 社會的構成 ( The Constitution of Society )，王銘銘譯，北京：生活•讀書•新知三聯書店。
Goffman, Erving
1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.
1961 Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books.
1963 Stigma: Note on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
1967 Mental Symptoms and Public Order, in Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, pp.137-148. New York: Pantheon Books.
1969 Strategic Interaction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylania Press.
1974 Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Good, J. Byron
1992 Culture and Psychopathology: Directions for Psychiatric Anthropology, in New Directions in Psychological Anthropological Anthropology, Theodorre Schwartz, Geoffrey M. White, and Catherine A. Lutz edited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hare, A. Paul and Herbert H. Blumberg
1988 Dramaturgical Analysis of Social Interaction. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Husserl, Edmund
1997 胡塞爾選集（上）、（下），倪梁康選編。上海：三聯書店。
Kleinman, Arthur
1980 Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1985 Culture and Depression：Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder. California: University of California Press.
1988a Rethinking Psychiatry：from Cultural Category to Personal Experience. New York: Free Press.
1988b The Illness Narratives：Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition. New York: Basic Books.
Laing, R. D.
1961 Self and Others. New York: Penguin Books.
1994 分裂的自我：對健全與瘋狂的生存論研究 (” The Divided Self ”，1967年版)。貴州：貴州人民出版社。
Levine, Robert A.
1999 An Agenda for Psychological Anthropology. In Ethos 27(1): 15-24.
Lock, Margaret and Scheper-Hughes, Nancy
1990 A Critical-Interpretative Approach in Medical Anthropology：Rituals and Routines of Discipline and Dissent. In Medical Anthropology：A Handbook of Theory and Method, Thomas M. Johnson and Carolyn F. Sargent eds, pp.47-72. New York: Greenwood Press.
Rhodes, Lorna Amarasingham
1993 The Shape of Action: Practice in Public Psychiatry. In Knowledge, Power, and Practice, Shirley Lindenbaum and Margret Lock eds, pp.129-144. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rosehan, David L.
1973 “On Being Sane in Insane Places” in Science 179(January):250-258.
Schechner, Richard
1988 Performance Theory (Revised and Expanded Edition). New York：Routledge Press.
Scheff, T. J.
1974 The Labelling Theory of Mental Illness, in American Sociological Review Vol.39(June):444-52.
Simms, Andrew
1988 Fundamental Concepts of Descriptive Psychopathology, in Symptoms in the Mind：an Introduction to Descriptive Psychopathology, pp.1-18. London: Bailliere Tindall.
Sontag, Susan
1989 Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. New York: Anchor Books.
Schutz, A.
1991 社會世界的現象學(The Phenomenology of Social World)，盧嵐蘭譯，台北：桂冠。
Szasz, Thomas S.
1970 The Manufacture of Madness. New York: Harper&Row Publishers.
1974 The Myth of Mental Illness. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Toombs, S. K.
2000 病患的意義：醫生和病人不同觀點的現象學探討(譯自The Meaning of Illness: A Phenomenological Account of Different Perspectives of Physician and Patient)，邱鴻鐘、陳蓉霞、李劍譯。青島：青島出版社。
Turner, Bryan S.
1984 Disease and Disorder. In The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory, pp.227-251, New York: Basil Blackwell Inc.
1987 Medical Power and Social Knowledge. London: Sage Publications.
Turner, Victor
1969 The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: University of Rochester Press.
1985 On the Edge of the Bush：Anthropology as Experience. Turner, Edith L. B. edited. Arizona：University of Arizona Press.
1987 The Anthropology of Performance. New York: PAJ Publications.
Turner, Victor and Bruner, Edward M. edited
1986 The Anthropology of Experience. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Weckowicz, Thaddeus E.
1984 Philosophical-Moral Models, in Models of Mental Illness: Systems and Theories of Abnormal Psychology, pp.5-24, U.S.A.: C.C. Thomas.
Wilce, James M. JR.
1998 The Pragmatics of “Madness”: Performance Analysis of a Bangladeeshi Woman’s “Aberrant” Lament. In Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 22: 1-54.
Young, Allan
1994 A Description of How Ideology Shapes Knowledge of a Mental Disorder (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder). In Knowledge, Power, and Practice, Shirley Lindenbaum and Margret Lock eds, pp.108-128.Berkeley: University of California Press.