"Colonial War and Mental Disorders"

1. How do you conceptualize the relationship between human psychology and material conditions? Why, as materialists, should we concern ourselves with understanding and discussing mental health?

2. What binds the cases from Group A and Group B together, respectively? What types of violence has affected the mental conditions of these patients?

3. How do you see the systemic patterns described throughout “Wretched of the Earth” reflected within the individual in these psychiatric case studies? Which cases do you find support Fanon’s analysis the most?

4. What does this chapter seem to say about the nature of psychiatric disorders in general? How then can reading Fanon help us understand the mental health crises in our own communities?