Colonial psychiatry and 'the African mind' / Jock McCulloch.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Cambridge University Press, c1995.Description: x, 185 p. ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 0521453305 (hardback)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 616.89/0096 20
LOC classification:
  • RC451.A4 M35 1995
NLM classification:
  • WM 11 HA1 M4c 1995
Contents:
1. Introduction -- 2. Psychiatry and colonial practice -- 3. Some contemporary reviews of colonial mental health systems -- 4. Towards a theory of the African mind -- 5. Theory into practice: Carothers and the politics of Mau Mau -- 6. African intelligence, sexuality and psyche -- 7. The African family and the colonial personality -- 8. The elements of orthodoxy -- 9. From psychiatry to politics -- 10. Conclusion.
Summary: In this first history of the practice and the theoretical underpinnings of colonial psychiatry in Africa, Jock McCulloch describes the clinical approaches of well-known European psychiatrists who worked with indigenous Africans, among them Frantz Fanon, J. C. Carothers and Wulf Sachs. They were a disparate group, operating independently of one another, and mostly in intellectual isolation.Summary: But despite their differences, they shared a coherent set of ideas about 'the African mind', premissed on the colonial notion of African inferiority. In exploring the close association between the ideologies of settler societies and psychiatric research this intriguing study is one of the few attempts to explore colonial science as a system of knowledge and power.
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Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books Books Kwara State University Library RC451 .M35 1995 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 00289-01

Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-180) and index.

1. Introduction -- 2. Psychiatry and colonial practice -- 3. Some contemporary reviews of colonial mental health systems -- 4. Towards a theory of the African mind -- 5. Theory into practice: Carothers and the politics of Mau Mau -- 6. African intelligence, sexuality and psyche -- 7. The African family and the colonial personality -- 8. The elements of orthodoxy -- 9. From psychiatry to politics -- 10. Conclusion.

In this first history of the practice and the theoretical underpinnings of colonial psychiatry in Africa, Jock McCulloch describes the clinical approaches of well-known European psychiatrists who worked with indigenous Africans, among them Frantz Fanon, J. C. Carothers and Wulf Sachs. They were a disparate group, operating independently of one another, and mostly in intellectual isolation.

But despite their differences, they shared a coherent set of ideas about 'the African mind', premissed on the colonial notion of African inferiority. In exploring the close association between the ideologies of settler societies and psychiatric research this intriguing study is one of the few attempts to explore colonial science as a system of knowledge and power.

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