Psychiatry in Jamaica—Growth and Development

Abstract

The history of psychiatry in the Caribbean island of Jamaica is presented based on ethnohistoriographic accounts of large group meetings of patients and staff of the Bellevue State Mental Hospital in the late 1970s. The development of psychiatric services is described from pre-colonial days of the indigenous Arawak Indians. The existing mental hospital was established in 1862 by the British Colonial Government, and the Mental Hospital Act of 1873 created the system whereby the mentally ill were arrested for lunacy and incarcerated in the mental hospital by Magistrates order. The development of a Community Psychiatric Service and the establishment of a deinstitutionalization programme for the mental Hospital in the decade of the 1960s and 70s is described, and a review of the private and public community services presently existing in the island is also described. A brief review of the existing literature on Jamaican psychopathology is presented, including a discussion on schizophrenia in Afro-Caribbeans, other common psychiatric conditions, developments in psychotherapy in Jamaicans, and psychodynamic issues of cultural identity.