Colonial psychiatry and 'the African mind' /
Jock McCulloch.
- New York : Cambridge University Press, c1995.
- x, 185 p. ; 24 cm.
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.
0521453305 (hardback)
94010754
Psychiatry--Political aspects--History.--Africa National characteristics, African. Imperialism--Psychological aspects. Community Psychiatry--history. Politics. Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice.