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Biomedical subjects

H F Butts

Publications and source records attributed to H F Butts.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1979

Frantz Fanon's contribution to psychiatry: the psychology of racism and colonialism.

Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique, educated in France, and, after psychiatric training, administered a psychiatric hospital in Algeria. He made numerous contributions to psychiatry which are described in this paper. He is best remembered, however, for his four books: Black Skin, White Masks; Toward the African Revolution; A Dying Colonialism; and The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon became a spokesman for third-world denizens of all nations by describing in sensitive, clinically astute terms the psychology of racism and its untoward effects upon oppressor and oppressed. He also described the dehumanization and psychological treatment inherent in colonialist exploitation. With Dr. Fanon's premature death at the age of 37 in 1961, the world was deprived of one of the most eloquent and skilled spokesmen for those who are oppressed by the pro-white, anti-black paranoia which is racism. This paper describes in detail the nature of his singular contributions.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1979

Economic stress and mental health.

This paper correlates economic stress with minority status, resource allocations for mental health programs, and vulnerability to mental disability. Several hypotheses are advanced:1. A major and recurring psychological pattern of the American national character is prowhite, antiblack paranoia.2. Mental health fiscal allocations and programmatic determinations in ghetto, lower socioeconomic, minority-populated urban areas are predicated on political and racist considerations, the underlying motivation being to keep minorities at greater risk of mental disability.3. Economic privation and stress increase vulnerability to mental illness, especially in a minority population for whom health, mental health, educational, and social services are grossly inadequate.4. Poverty and economic stress combine with health systems that are unresponsive to the needs of blacks and other minorities, resulting in the perpetuation of disabilities and other conditions in blacks that are potentially preventable.5. Health and mental health resources should be increased rather than diminished during periods of economic stress, especially in the public sector.6. In order to provide each citizen with access to quality health and mental health care regardless of race and/or economic status, there must be enacted a national health insurance program based on tax-levy monies that will cover all aspects of health and mental health care.7. Racism and social status will continue to be powerful determinants of the quality of service that white professionals render to black patients and to poor white patients, unless our training institutions mount a massive campaign to train appropriately and to include significant numbers of minority candidates and trainees in the effort. To date this effort is virtually nonexistent.

Humans↗
PubMed1979

Deinstitutionalization.

This paper treats the issue of the treatment of the chronically mentally disabled. The author challenges the feasibility of plans for the treatment of the chronically disabled outside of mental institutions and questions whether in actuality there has been a sufficient commitment (moral, professional, and financial) to the local noninstitutional care of this population. The history of treatment of the mentally disabled over the past three centuries is reviewed. The failure of the community mental health center movement during the 1960s is described, and the reasons for that failure are presented. A note of extreme caution is sounded as behavioral scientists and mental health planners devise methods of caring for the chronic population, lest courses be embarked upon that have been given inadequate consideration and planning.

Deinstitutionalization↗
PubMed1979

Child abuse: a black perspective utilizing a social-psychological model.

The majority of models utilized in the formulation of the dynamics of child abuse rely upon an individual psychopathological frame of reference. Not only is this approach limited, but it renders primary preventive approaches virtually impossible. The author presents a social-psychological model, with the recommendation that it be applied among blacks. Essential to the model's applicability is the vulnerability of blacks to institutionalized racism and to the universal and destructive institutional abuse to which blacks are subjected. While often quite covert, this abuse is nonetheless extremely noxious, and serves to potentiate the view blacks have of themselves as undervalued individuals, and as individuals who have no alternative other than to commit abuse to others. Child abuse in blacks is viewed as reactive in nature-reactive to societal abuse. This adaptational model of child abuse, rather than precluding an individual psychopathological model, complements it. Use of this model should facilitate primary prevention with respect to child abuse. Current approaches to child abuse are comparable to "an ambulance service at the bottom of a cliff." What is lacking is an approach that will "fix the road on the cliff that causes the accidents." Only by examining the intricate interplay between individual and society can the factors that lead to child abuse be modified.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1979

Education for humanism in a pro-white, anti-black society.

Humanism has been defined as "any system or way of thought or action concerned with the interests and ideals of people." Racism has been defined as "pro-white, anti-black paranoia." This paper treats the factors in the American racist society that serve to erode humanistic values. This erosion is especially pronounced in a racist, capitalistic society that subjugates blacks and engages in exploitation based on profit-making. The author poses six hypotheses that define the problems, implicit in which reside solutions.

Black or African American↗