Mental Health and Segregation PDF
Preview Mental Health and Segregation
MENTAL HEALTH AND SEGREGATION A selection of papers and some book chapters by David P. Ausubel Charles S. Johnson Benjamin Pasamanick Margaret Brenman Janet A. Kennedy Sheldon R. Roen Kenneth B. Clark Hilda Knobloch A. B. Sclare Mamie P. Clark Edna M. Lantz Morton Shane Martin Deutsch Benjamin Malzberg S. R. Slavson Martin M. Grossack Helen V. Mclean Harry Stack Sullivan Martin D. Jenkins Paul H. Mussen David C. Wilson M TA EA TH AND SEGREGATION Edited by Martin M. Grossack ~ Springer Science+Business Media, LLC First printing, December, I963 Second printing, June, I966 Copyright © 1963 Springer Seienee+Business Media New York Originally published by Springer Publishing Company, Ine. in 1966 ISBN 978-3-662-37110-7 ISBN 978-3-662-37819-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-37819-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-21647 Type set at The Polyglot Press Preface The issues involved in the relationship of mental health and segre gation are of importance to scholars and laymen alike. Many of these issues have been studied in the past thirty years, and the bibliography on the subject is larger than most people assume. By bringing together representative investigations from many areas, this book will help clarify problems and may serve as a point of departure for those curious about the field, in particular, educators, social scientists, psy chiatrists, and students. The range of periodicals from which the papers are taken is so wide that few libraries would have all of them available. The field of mental health and segregation is covered in its major dimensions: problems of Negro morale; studies of children, adoles cents, and adults; approaches to Negro mental health; problems in psychotherapy. Obviously, including all worthy topics is not possible. An extensive bibliography is provided for those wishing to pursue the various issues in more detail. The articles give a picture of current thinking about the psychic consequences of segregation. They include material that is experimen tal, attitudinal, clinical, dynamic and statistical. Alternative points of view are presented, especially in Section IV. The articles are un abridged for the most part. Several case studies are presented. When I was in Little Rock, from 1953-1955, my studies of group be longingness, attitudes, and Negro personality began to show me the extent to which segregation is also a mental health problem. This book should help broaden the perspective of those concerned with the psy chological issues involved in segregation. I would like to acknowledge the help of David Crowell, Steve Pratt, Lawrence Shubow, and Herbert Weaver for insights into psychology they have given me. I would like to mention in particular Dr. M. L. Harris, former President of Philander Smith College, and now Bishop of the Methodist Church, for his encouragement of research during my stay in Little Rock. Suffolk University Boston August 1963 MARTIN M. GROSSACK, PH.D. CONTENTS Page Introduction I I SEGREGATION AND NEGRO MORALE Attidudes Towards Desegregation of Southern White and Negro Children by Martin M. Grossack 7 2 Psychological Effects of Segregation on Buses by Martin M. Grossack 14 3 Group Belongingness Among Negroes by Martin M. Grossack 18 II NEGRO CHILDREN 4 Ego Development Among Segregated Negro Children by David P. Ausubel 33 5 The Guidance Problems of Negro Youth by Charles S. Johnson 41 6 Emotional Factors in Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children by Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark 53 7 Minority Group and Class Status as Related to Social and Personality Factors in Scholastic Achievement by Martin Deutsch 64 8 The Contribution of Some Organic Factors to School Retardation in Negro Children by Benjamin Pasamanick and Hilda Knobloch 76 III ADOLESCENCE AND ADULTHOOD 9 Urban Lower-Class Negro Girls by Margaret Brenman 83 10 Personality and Negro-White Intelligence by Sheldon R. Roen 109 11 The Upper Limit of Ability Among American Negroes by Martin D. Jenkins II3 12 Difference Between the TAT Responses of Negro and White Boys by Paul H. Mussen 117 13 Some Personality Characteristics of Southern Negro Students by Martin M. Grossack 123 IV MENTAL HEALTH OF NEGROES 14 The Emotional Health of Negroes by Helen V. McLean 131 15 Culture Change and Negro State Hospital Admissions by David C. Wilson and Edna M. Lantz 139 16 A Survey of Mental Disease in an Urban Population by Benjamin Pasamanick 150 17 Mental Disease Among Negroes by Benjamin Malzberg 158 18 Cultural Determinants in the Neurotic Negro by A. B. Sclare 161 19 Memorandum on a Psychiatric Reconnaissance by Harry Stack Sullivan 175 V PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH NEGROES 20 Some Subcultural Considerations in the Psychotherapy of a Negro Patient by Morton Shane 183 21 Problems Posed in the Analysis of Negro Patients by Janet A. Kennedy 199 22 Racial and Cultural Factors in Group Therapy by S. R. Slavson 222 23 Psychology and Negro Life ... Some Needed Research by Martin M. Grossack 227 References 231 Index 239 Introduction SEGREGATION AND ITS MEANING A particular term may help explain a number of phenomena. For example, "competitiveness" helps explain sibling rivalry, aspects of capitalism, grading systems in college, etc. Similarly the concept of segregation helps us understand Negro poverty, family relations, school difficulties, mental health, and social relations. Segregation may be defined as the social system represented by group relations of domi nance and submission, unequal distribution of wealth and means of production, prohibitions on social advancement, and the designa tion of inferior biological and social status through legal means and the power of the community. Segregation is a key concept that must be kept in mind when evaluating the conditions of the Negro in America. It includes the effects of the historical experiences of a formerly enslaved people, the loss of African cultural identity, and the indoctrination of a slave psychology. Negroes were often separated from their loved ones, children from their parents. Slave owners did not encourage family solidarity; some utilized slaves as producers of more slaves, bred slaves as a marketable commodity. After emancipation, prejudice against Negroes did not subside. They remained in desperate economic straights. Their voca tional opportunities were negligible due to illiteracy and the lack of skills.* Throughout American history, Negroes and whites have lived in separate psychological worlds. The separate worlds have been called a caste system, a relationship that has been legally defined in many ways. But there was always a dominant group, the whites, and a dominated one, the Negroes. Gradually, social classes developed within the Negro group as a result of degree of whiteness in color, field slave or house slave background, and economic aptitude. In comparing Negroes and whites, many social scientists attempt to equate social class-an im possible task since the same social position has a different meaning in both groups. Let us consider one example: Over 20 percent of Negroes have dis rupted families, with only one parent present. An understanding of the system of segregation and its historical consequences can help ex plain this phenomenon. Negro families are often dominated by the mother and/or maternal grandmother. The father is unable to meet * For a detailed history of the Negro in America, The people that walk in dark ness, by J. W. Schulte Nordholt !New York: Ballantine Books, 1960), should be studied. 1 2 INTRODUCTION the woman's image of a good husband and provider and often deserts the group in an acting-out of his desperation. The mothers develop a preference for female children. A much larger percentage of Negro girls than boys complete secondary school and college in the South. Boys have difficulty achieving an adequate sense of masculinity. The chil dren are often unlikely to develop ambitions and needs for achieve ment comparable to those found among white children. This is just one example that shows the interplay of segregation on school problems and family relations. NEGRO MENTAL HEALTH The articles that follow help the reader see problems of mental health within the framework of the social conditions of Negro life in America.* By mental health we mean the extent to which individ uals can deal satisfactorily with the conditions of existence, their feel ings of self-love and their ability to relate to others. Some ways in which this can be measured are: I. Statistics on the frequency of different types of mental illness 2. Data on emotional problems of learning and school retardation 3. Data on crime rates, delinquency, addiction, prostitution, and divorce 4. Data on psychological variables-feelings about one's color, atti tudes of self-hatred, desires to achieve, expressions of hostility, sexual identification, interpersonal relations, etc. The articles in this book provide data concerning the relation ships between many of these aspects of mental health, on the one hand, and the segregated social conditions of Negro life in the United States, on the other. I. SEGREGATION AND NEGRO MORALE The articles in this section of the book suggest that segregation does not have a healthy influence on most American Negroes. Segregation imposes an additional stress and strain on Negroes that whites do not face in their everyday life. Not every Negro is equally harmed by segregation since there are individual differences in how people experience social norms and how they learn about them. Each Negro learns to adapt in his own way, but none can ever truly escape the system. * It is instructive to compare mental illness among Negroes in the United States with African data. Honigmann reports that schizophrenia is forty-four times more prevalent in the American Negro than in Kenya Africans. Similarly, organic psy choses are much more prevalent among American Negroes. In Ghana. manic depressive psychoses and depression are high in frequency according to Dr. S. K. Weinberg, while these conditions are relatively infrequent among Negroes generally and in other African nations. Men are much more likely to be patients in Africa than in the United States (compared to the female rates).
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