Martin Summers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190852641
- eISBN:
- 9780190060138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190852641.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, American History: 20th Century
The introduction frames the entire book by laying out the two main arguments and emphasizing the book’s contribution to the historiography of mental illness and psychiatry. The book contributes to a ...
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The introduction frames the entire book by laying out the two main arguments and emphasizing the book’s contribution to the historiography of mental illness and psychiatry. The book contributes to a relatively new but growing historiographic interpretation that utilizes race as a category of historical analysis. It highlights how ideas of racial difference were embedded in the ways that psychiatrists thought about mental health and mental illness and how they managed and treated patients. One of the central arguments is that Saint Elizabeths psychiatrists’ construction of the white psyche as the norm led to much ambiguity and ambivalence when it came to understanding and treating mental illness among African Americans. The other is that African Americans—patients and nonpatients—interacted with Saint Elizabeths in a way that sought not only to shape the therapeutic experience but also to affirm their status as citizens who were equal before the law.Less
The introduction frames the entire book by laying out the two main arguments and emphasizing the book’s contribution to the historiography of mental illness and psychiatry. The book contributes to a relatively new but growing historiographic interpretation that utilizes race as a category of historical analysis. It highlights how ideas of racial difference were embedded in the ways that psychiatrists thought about mental health and mental illness and how they managed and treated patients. One of the central arguments is that Saint Elizabeths psychiatrists’ construction of the white psyche as the norm led to much ambiguity and ambivalence when it came to understanding and treating mental illness among African Americans. The other is that African Americans—patients and nonpatients—interacted with Saint Elizabeths in a way that sought not only to shape the therapeutic experience but also to affirm their status as citizens who were equal before the law.
Martin Summers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190852641
- eISBN:
- 9780190060138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190852641.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, American History: 20th Century
The conclusion provides a summation of the book’s main arguments and offers suggestions for further research in the history of African American mental health. It reasserts the two central theses. ...
More
The conclusion provides a summation of the book’s main arguments and offers suggestions for further research in the history of African American mental health. It reasserts the two central theses. First, Saint Elizabeths’ psychiatrists’ construction and reaffirmation of the white psyche as the norm produced a great deal of ambiguity regarding the nature of black insanity. This contributed to the prioritizing of the white sufferer of mental illness and the marginalization of mentally ill blacks. Second, African American patients and their communities exercised agency in their interactions with Saint Elizabeths, both to shape the therapeutic experience and to assert their status as citizens. This latter argument suggests that the orthodox view that African Americans have generally had an indifferent or antagonistic relationship to psychiatry needs to be rethought, which will require further historical scholarship, particularly with respect to African American activism within the realm of mental health care.Less
The conclusion provides a summation of the book’s main arguments and offers suggestions for further research in the history of African American mental health. It reasserts the two central theses. First, Saint Elizabeths’ psychiatrists’ construction and reaffirmation of the white psyche as the norm produced a great deal of ambiguity regarding the nature of black insanity. This contributed to the prioritizing of the white sufferer of mental illness and the marginalization of mentally ill blacks. Second, African American patients and their communities exercised agency in their interactions with Saint Elizabeths, both to shape the therapeutic experience and to assert their status as citizens. This latter argument suggests that the orthodox view that African Americans have generally had an indifferent or antagonistic relationship to psychiatry needs to be rethought, which will require further historical scholarship, particularly with respect to African American activism within the realm of mental health care.
Martin Summers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- August 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190852641
- eISBN:
- 9780190060138
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190852641.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, American History: 20th Century
This book is a history of the federal mental institution Saint Elizabeths Hospital and its relationship to Washington, DC’s African American community. Founded in 1855 to treat insane military ...
More
This book is a history of the federal mental institution Saint Elizabeths Hospital and its relationship to Washington, DC’s African American community. Founded in 1855 to treat insane military personnel and the District’s civilian residents, the institution became one of the nation’s preeminent research and teaching psychiatric hospitals. From the beginning of its operation, Saint Elizabeths admitted black patients, making it one of the few American asylums to do so. The book charts the history of Saint Elizabeths from its founding to the late 1980s, when the hospital’s mission and capabilities changed as a result of deinstitutionalization and its transfer from the federal government to the District. The book makes two main arguments. First, ideas of racial difference figured prominently in how hospital officials understood the mission of the institution and subsequently designed and operated it, in how hospital officials understood mental disease and developed therapies to address it, and in how patients experienced their confinement. This history reveals the ways the American psychiatric profession engaged in an unarticulated project that conceptualized the white psyche as the norm. Second, this book argues that African Americans—both patients and nonpatients—were not powerless people acted on by large institutional forces. Black Washingtonians were active agents in their interactions with the hospital, from more overtly political and collective endeavors, such as calling for investigations of the mistreatment of black patients and advocating for the hospital’s integration, to the more individualized and quotidian attempts to manage their own or their loved one’s therapeutic experience.Less
This book is a history of the federal mental institution Saint Elizabeths Hospital and its relationship to Washington, DC’s African American community. Founded in 1855 to treat insane military personnel and the District’s civilian residents, the institution became one of the nation’s preeminent research and teaching psychiatric hospitals. From the beginning of its operation, Saint Elizabeths admitted black patients, making it one of the few American asylums to do so. The book charts the history of Saint Elizabeths from its founding to the late 1980s, when the hospital’s mission and capabilities changed as a result of deinstitutionalization and its transfer from the federal government to the District. The book makes two main arguments. First, ideas of racial difference figured prominently in how hospital officials understood the mission of the institution and subsequently designed and operated it, in how hospital officials understood mental disease and developed therapies to address it, and in how patients experienced their confinement. This history reveals the ways the American psychiatric profession engaged in an unarticulated project that conceptualized the white psyche as the norm. Second, this book argues that African Americans—both patients and nonpatients—were not powerless people acted on by large institutional forces. Black Washingtonians were active agents in their interactions with the hospital, from more overtly political and collective endeavors, such as calling for investigations of the mistreatment of black patients and advocating for the hospital’s integration, to the more individualized and quotidian attempts to manage their own or their loved one’s therapeutic experience.
