Contradictions and Constructions: Psychiatric Perceptions in Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1979

Abstract

South African psychiatrists perpetuated apartheid notions of racial difference between 1948 and 1977. However, support of apartheid ideology by South African psychiatrists was not necessarily uniform. Rather, some psychiatrists supported apartheid ideology, some opposed it, while others did both. Yet most of the assertions by South African psychiatrists who challenged apartheid ideology inadvertently ended up perpetuating apartheid policies and increasing the gap between services for 'White' and 'non-White' patients. In the early years of apartheid, psychiatric innovations of community psychiatry, which promoted more 'open-door' and community-orientated practices, opposed apartheid notions of racial segregation through its focus on prevention. Yet, community psychiatry also neglected the needs of long-term patients--the majority of whom were 'non-White'. The assassination of the state President, H. F. Verwoerd in 1966, by a 'criminally insane' individual, highlighted the psychiatric profession's inability to deal with the criminally insane and long-term patients. In opposition to those psychiatrists promoting community psychiatry, some psychiatrists called for stricter policies concerning mental patients, the majority of whom were 'non-White'. In the 1970s, assertions of cross-cultural psychiatry rejected the biological and racial basis for 'mental illness' and challenged apartheid racism. However, cross-cultural psychiatry also supported apartheid notions of segregation through its stereotypical view of African culture. Thus, much of the psychiatric perceptions during the height of apartheid were ambiguous and contradictory, and ended up supporting the apartheid state. This was because the apartheid state itself was not completely uniform or free of contradictions.