 Basaglia insisted that much in the inveterate stereotypes of madness was actually the consequence of institutional conditions, but not a real danger which the walls of a mental hospital had been required to contain.He considered psychiatric hospital as an oppressive, locked and total institution in which prison-like, punitive rules are applied, in order to gradually eliminate its own contents; and patients, doctors and nurses are all subjected (at different levels) to the same process of institutionalism.Basaglia recognized that many of the characteristics of his patients which were believed to be inherent in their mental illness, such as the vacant stares and the repetitive gestures and movements, appeared to dissolve as the patients left the confines of the asylum.