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The History of Madness in Jamaica 1494–1960

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Decolonization of Psychiatry in Jamaica

Abstract

The history of madness of Black people has almost always been told by White people. The European colonial ‘civilizing mission’ omnipotently promoted both custody and cure of mentally disordered people by the creation of harsh punitive treatments, custodial Lunatic Asylums, and laws that have dictated the configuration of the thoughts of Black and disenfranchised folk. European ‘civilizing mission’ seems more a fiction of arrogant delusional European colonial thinking than self-proclaimed benevolent altruism. Ideas that moral treatment as a model encompassing custodial and curative mental health issues, providing structure, order, and discipline, are challenged by the scandal of the nineteenth-century Kingston Lunatic Asylum demonstrated as a disingenuous obfuscation of slavery. Moral treatment is posited as an imperfect model of postcolonial European Imperialism dishonestly encompassing interactions and activities promoting patients’ recovery and rehabilitation but in actuality camouflaging a racist melange of the European paternalistic psychotic delusions of ownership and control.

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  1. Psychology, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica

    Frederick W. Hickling

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Correspondence to Frederick W. Hickling .

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Hickling, F.W. (2021). The History of Madness in Jamaica 1494–1960. In: Decolonization of Psychiatry in Jamaica. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48489-7_2

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