Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T10:22:46.661Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Afro Caribbeans and Schizophrenia: How Does Psychiatry Deal With Issues of Race, Culture and Ethnicity?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Caroline Knowles
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper discusses the various ways in which British Afro Caribbeans are disadvantaged in their encounter with psychiatry. It suggests that far from being monolithic and institutional, racism must be deconstructed and traced to the actions, practices and procedure involved in specific encounters. The procedures of psychiatry are examined through the discourses of psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology. From this analysis it is suggested that psychiatry's relationship to Afro Caribbean populations in Britain arises from the ways in which psychiatry conceptualises notions of ethnicity, race and cultural difference, as well as ways in which it organises and reproduces itself as a form of therapeutic intervention.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1991 , pp. 173 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, G. and Cook, M.A. (1984), ‘Beginning psychiatry. Trainees forum’, Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 8: 3, 53.Google Scholar
Bebbington, P.E., Hurry, J. and Tennant, C. (1981), ‘Psychiatric disorders in selected immigrant groups in Camberwell’, Social Psychiatry, 16, 43–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, A. (1984), ‘Racism and psychological disturbance among West Indians in Britain’, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 30: 1 and 2, 50–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Busfield, J. (1986), Managing Madness, Unwin Hyman, London.Google Scholar
Busfield, J. (1989), ‘Sexism and psychiatry’, Sociology, 23: 3, 343–364.Google Scholar
Chu, C., Abi-Dargham, A. and Ackerman, B. et al. (1988), ‘Sex differences in schizophrenia’, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 35: 3, 237–244.Google Scholar
Fernando, S. (1988), Race and Culture in Psychiatry, Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
Francis, E. (1989), ‘Black people, “dangerousness” and psychiatric compulsion’, in Bracx, A. and Grimshaw, C. (eds), Mental Health Care in Crisis, Pluto, London.Google Scholar
Feuchtwang, S. (1982), ‘Occupational ghettoes’, Economy and Society, 11: 3, 251–91.Google Scholar
Torrey, E. Fuller (1987), ‘Prevalence studies in schizophrenia’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 598–608.Google Scholar
Glover, G. (1989), ‘The pattern of psychiatric admissions of Caribbean-born immigrants in London’, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 24, 49–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G., Owens, D., Holton, A., Neilson, D. and Boot, D. (1988), ‘A prospective study of severe mental disorder in Afro-Caribbean patients’, Psychological Medicine, 18, 643–657.Google Scholar
Henderson, D.K. and Gillespie, R.D. (1969), Textbook of Psychiatry for Students and Practitioners, OUP, London.Google Scholar
Hirst, P. and Wolley, P. (1982), Social Relations and Human Attributes, Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Husbands, C. (1984), Race in Britain, Hutchinson, London.Google Scholar
Kerson, D. and Jones, B. (1988), ‘Tertiary care psychiatry in Zaire: DSM-III in the developing world’, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 34: 1, 31–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Littlewood, M. (1980), ‘Ethnic Minorities and Psychiatric Services’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 2, 194–201.Google Scholar
Littlewood, M. (1986), ‘Ethnic minorities and the Mental Health Act’, Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 10, 306–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Littlewood, R. and Lipsedge, M. (1988), ‘Psychiatric illness among British Afro-Caribbeans’, British Medical Journal, 296, 2 04, 950–1.Google Scholar
McGovern, D. and Cope, R. (1987), ‘The compulsory detention of males of different ethnic groups, with special reference to offender patients’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 505–11.Google Scholar
Mercer, K. (1984), ‘Black communities' experience of psychiatric services’, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 30, 1 and 2, 22–27.Google Scholar
Mind (1987), A Place of Safety, Mind, London.Google Scholar
Murray, R.M. and Lewis, S.W. (1987), ‘Is schizophrenia a neurodevelopmental disorder?’, British Medical Journal, 295: 6600, 681–2.Google Scholar
Shur, E. (1988), ‘The epidemiology of schizophrenia’, Journal of Hospital Medicine, 40: 1, 38–45.Google Scholar