What on Earth is ‘protest psychosis’?
Dr Jess takes down the ‘mental illness’ that causes you to… protest for your rights?
What on Earth is ‘protest psychosis’?
A form of psychosis that makes you protest for better rights? That cannot be real, can it?
Well, yes.
Especially, and specifically, if you happen to be Black.
I am a psychologist who refuses to work within the confines of the medical model of mental illness. I am anti-pathology and anti-oppression. I believe that all so-called ‘mental illnesses’ were dreamt up and developed in order to control different social groups at different times for different reasons.
Protest psychosis, schizophrenia and drapetomania are three very clear examples of systemic racism and oppression.
Black communities start protesting for their rights?
They must be schizophrenic!
Right?
Of course fucking not!
So let’s get into it…
Protest psychosis refers to a phenomenon in which certain psychiatric conditions, particularly schizophrenia, were disproportionately diagnosed among African American men during the civil rights movement in the United States. This term was discussed by psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl in his 2010 book, ‘The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease’.
Metzl's research showed that during the 1960s and 1970s, schizophrenia began to be associated with aggressive or violent behaviour in Black men, and this shift in diagnostic trends just so happened to coincide with the civil rights movement and other political protests.
African American men, especially those who were politically active or speaking for the resistance, were much more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, and their behaviour was framed as dangerous or psychotic. In fact, many were targeted deliberately and framed as psychotic by doctors, police and the media.
Whilst schizophrenia has deep roots in racism, and started out as the entirely fabricated ‘drapetomania’ (which we will get to in a moment), there was a period in time where schizophrenia was more likely to be diagnosed in non-violent, middle class white people who had become withdrawn and isolated.
However, as political tension and protesting in Black communities grew, medical discourse and media portrayals pivoted - and began depicting schizophrenia as a violent, dangerous disorder marked by hostility, anger, and paranoia — characteristics that were then applied to Black men in particular.
Pay close attention then, to how social and political factors influence psychiatric diagnoses, often reinforcing racial stereotypes and systemic inequality.
One moment schizophrenia was one thing, the next, it was the total opposite?
Seems pretty unscientific to me.
And to this day, schizophrenia diagnoses are disproportionately higher among Black men compared to other ethnicities and when compared to women.
Studies still suggest that Black men are diagnosed with schizophrenia at rates 2 to 3 times higher than white men. So why could this be?
I’ve seen so much misinformation online about this, and people often comment saying that schizophrenia is genetic, that a gene has been found, or that it is a naturally occurring chemical imbalance.
I just want to take this opportunity to say that we have never found a gene or genetic basis for schizophrenia, and we have never concluded that it is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, either. These are merely theories.
But let me ask you something. If you believe that schizophrenia and it’s related diagnosis, ‘protest psychosis’ are real illnesses, and they are biologically based - do you therefore believe that Black men are just born violent, dangerous, disordered and mentally ill?
Thought not.
Let’s continue.
The reality here, is that we are talking about serious levels of implicit bias. Black men are framed as dangerous and disordered, and are much more likely to be seen as severely mentally ill and schizophrenic than all other groups.
Health systems, psychiatry and psychology deliberately ignore socioeconomic factors, the daily trauma of racism, experiences of segregation, poverty, and inequality. We know from plenty of research that Black cultures, expressions, appearance and dialect is pathologised and framed as less sophisticated or less refined than those of White people. We know that everything from Afro hair to the pronunciation of words can and will be discriminated against by White institutions and professionals.
Mental health and trauma is no different. Just because we are framed as a caring profession doesn’t mean we don’t carry constant and deeply embedded systemic bias and racism. We know for example, and I wrote about this in ‘Sexy But Psycho’, that Black women are more likely to be seen as aggressive and angry when they are traumatised by abuse and rape. They are more likely to be diagnosed with personality disorders and seen as problematic by professionals.
So let’s get back to the ridiculous concept of ‘Protest Psychosis’…
Protest psychosis was pretty much what it said on the tin - a form of delusion and psychosis which caused Black people to protest for their rights.
If that doesn’t make you realise what an utter farce psychiatry is, I don’t know what will.
During the civil rights movement, certain Black activists and protesters were subjected to psychiatric diagnoses, and were often framed as mentally ill, in an attempt to discredit and attack them. Several notable people were diagnosed with schizophrenia, protest psychosis, or were portrayed as mentally ill by government, media and authorities.
1. Huey P. Newton (Black Panther Party)
Huey P. Newton, one of the co-founders of the Black Panther Party, was often depicted in the media as violent and paranoid, and he was subjected to multiple psychological evaluations while in prison. Although there is no clear record of him being formally diagnosed with schizophrenia, Newton’s behaviour and ideas were frequently framed as schizophrenia, paranoia, irrational, and mentally ill by authorities, which aligns with the broader trends of protest psychosis at that time.
2. Assata Shakur (Black Liberation Army)
Assata Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army and former Black Panther, was portrayed as an irrational and dangerous revolutionary by the FBI, police and media. During her time in prison, she was subjected to harsh treatment, including psychological assessments for schizophrenia and psychosis meant to delegitimise her political activism. The framework of mental illness and schizophrenia was always used to paint her activism as part of her paranoid psychosis.
And if you recognise that surname, my fellow hiphop heads, you’re right!
3. Malcolm X
Malcolm X was not diagnosed with schizophrenia, but throughout his life, he was portrayed by authorities and the media as radical, violent, and dangerous. This portrayal of him as a ‘crazy’ or ‘delusional’ schizophrenic militant can be seen as part of the same pattern of attempting to delegitimise Black activism through the lens of psychiatry and mental disorder.
4. Martin Luther King Jr.
While Martin Luther King Jr. was not diagnosed with schizophrenia, the FBI famously sought to portray him as schizophrenic and mentally disordered through their ‘Cointelpro’ operation. They sought to discredit him by smearing his character, using various methods, including psychological manipulation, and through framing him as psychotic mentally ill, to imply he was unfit for leadership.
Many rank-and-file members of groups like the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army were arrested, institutionalised, and diagnosed with schizophrenia, ‘protest psychosis’ and psychiatric disorders in ways that criminalised their political activism.
As a reminder, and for those of you who don’t know anything about The Black Panther Party, they created the Ten Point Platform and Program that served as the foundation of the Black Panther Party.
The ten points are:
We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
We want full employment for our people.
We want an end to the robbery by the Capitalists of our Black Community.
We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.
I mean… none of those look particularly ‘psychotic’ to me. I don’t agree with releasing everyone from prison… but do I think that’s a psychotic or schizophrenic demand? No.
In Metzl’s book that I mentioned earlier, he discusses how, as social unrest grew and Black communities worked together to find their voice and challenge oppression, these diagnoses of psychosis and ‘protest psychosis’ in particular, became a tool to suppress dissent and stigmatise activism among Black communities.
The psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia or similar conditions was part of a broader strategy used by the state and institutions to discredit Black political protest and activism for years. While not all high-profile activists were formally diagnosed with mental illness, the psychiatric framing of their activism in the media and by governments and authorities as irrational, violent, or ‘paranoid’ worked to undermine the civil rights movement.
It harks back to the days of Drapetomania, in which oppressors and slave owners would claim that Black enslaved people who attempted to escape plantations and houses were suffering from ‘delusional anti-whiteness’.
The link between schizophrenia and drapetomania lies in how both diagnoses reflect a history of psychiatric misuse to justify and reinforce racial oppression, particularly regarding Black people in the United States. While they are separated by more than a century in medical discourse, both conditions were used as tools to pathologise Black resistance to white authority.
Drapetomania was a tool of slavery.
Protest psychosis was a tool of white authority.
Same difference.
Drapetomania was a so-called (read: made up) mental illness coined in 1851 by Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a pro-slavery physician. He claimed it was a mental disorder causing enslaved Africans to flee captivity. According to Cartwright, the ‘natural’ state for Black people was enslavement and hard labour, and any desire for freedom was a symptom of mental illness and their ‘delusional anti-whiteness’.
Drapetomania is now widely recognised as utter oppressive abusive bullshit (ahem, pseudoscience) and an example of how psychiatry and medicine were (are) used to justify slavery and control enslaved individuals. It framed the normal human desire for freedom and resistance to oppression as pathological behaviour - which is something that has not gone away, in my opinion.
In the 1960s-1980s, schizophrenia became racialised, particularly during the civil rights movement and the rise of Black power activism. Black men who engaged in political protest or resistance were increasingly diagnosed with schizophrenia.
As schizophrenia’s definition shape-shifted to include symptoms like hostility, aggression, and paranoia, the disorder was used to label Black activists and those resisting white authority. This diagnosis effectively pathologised Black resistance, much like drapetomania did during the era of slavery.
Both schizophrenia in the context of protest psychosis and drapetomania reflect how psychiatry has historically been employed to dehumanise Black people, and maintain control over the public who seek to fight back against oppression, segregation and discrimination.
Drapetomania suggested that Black people’s desire for freedom was abnormal, just as schizophrenia diagnoses were used to frame Black protest as irrational, delusional or dangerous.
Just as drapetomania reinforced the power dynamics of slavery, the deliberate racialisation of schizophrenia during the civil rights era aimed to suppress Black political activism by suggesting that activists were mentally unstable, dangerous and psychotic.
Both diagnoses are fake. Neither of them exist, and so both diagnoses illustrate how psychiatry has always been infected by institutional racism. Drapetomania was a blatant effort to justify slavery by psychiatrists and doctors who were also slave owners - while the redefinition of schizophrenia by white psychiatrists and white authorities in the 1960s reflected white fear of Black power movements gaining traction and being taken seriously.
A tale as old as time: someone speaks up about abuses, and the abuser claims they must be mentally ill.
In recent years, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and other psychiatric bodies have made significant statements acknowledging their own history of racism and the role institutional racism has played within the field of psychiatry.
In January 2021, the APA issued its first ever formal acknowledgement and apology for its role in perpetuating structural racism within psychiatry. Key points from their statement include:
The APA acknowledged its past actions in promoting and reinforcing racist policies, including support for segregation and discriminatory research that pathologised and harmed Black people and other people of color. The APA specifically mentioned its decades-long support of eugenics and how psychiatric diagnoses had been used to justify discrimination.
(Remember the myth that Black people had smaller brains than whites people? Where do you think that came from?)
The APA apologised, said they would commit to anti-racism… but then refused an inquiry.
Similarly, the NIMH apologised in 2020, and the other APA (American Psychological Association) apologised in 2021. Even The Lancet Psychiatry journal issued a formal apology in 2022.
So where does this all leave us?
Well, it leaves us fairly close to where we started, in my view. White authorities are permitted to fabricate mental illnesses in Black communities, use them to control, suppress, discredit, medicate, and imprison Black people for their audacity to protest - and then later on, they can just quietly put out their toothless statements, brush off an inquiry, and carry on.
Psychiatry can continue to shape-shift to make these entirely fabricated ‘disorders’ mean anything they want. From drapetomania to hysteria, protest psychosis to ‘brain chemical imbalances’ - doctors, therapists, corporations, governments, and authorities have fed misinformation to several generations of the public, who now have absolutely no knowledge of the true history or the lack of science underpinning mental disorders and psychiatric treatments.
And so I want to finish on this thought:
I have worked with, and for, many organisations that complain about the way Black families and communities refuse to engage in their ‘mental health’ programmes and initiatives which encourage Black families to come forward and talk about their mental health.
Black communities and families are framed as being irrationally fearful and refusing to engage in these services, whereas I think they are probably better off staying away from them whilst they are so blatantly racist.
Thank you so much for reading this article on ‘protest psychosis’ and the role of racism in psychiatry and psychology.
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Mothers (and fathers!) who point out the violations of their human rights in the “family courts” are also labelled as delusional, paranoid, with personality disorders. I wonder what diagnoses the disordered individuals who dole out false labels like that have.
Thanks for writing Dr Taylor.