Institutionalization used to describe both the act of committing someone to an institution, such as a mental hospital, and the state of an inmate of such a place who has adapted to it so thoroughly that he is incapable of living outside it.
Institutionalization used to describe both the act of committing someone to an institution, such as a mental hospital, and the state of an inmate of such a place who has adapted to it so thoroughly that he is incapable of living outside it.