Vernon A De Maynard - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Vernon A De Maynard

British Journal of Guidance & Counselling

ABSTRACT Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychother... more ABSTRACT Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychotherapists, clients may reveal illicit fantasies where it is unclear whether he or she is acting out his or her illicit fantasies. Using web-based survey methods to collect qualitative data, I explored therapists' decision-making when clients disclose illicit fantasies in such circumstances. Data analysed thematically revealed that most therapists were confident in asking direct questions about illicit fantasies. However, therapists working in private practice appeared to be less likely to estimate risk or “dangerousness” objectively than therapists working in the NHS were. Implications for mental health care practice are considered.

International Journal of Culture and Mental Health

... Indeed, Janssen et al. (200342. Janssen , I. , Hanssen , M. , Bak , M. , Bijl , RV , DE Graaf... more ... Indeed, Janssen et al. (200342. Janssen , I. , Hanssen , M. , Bak , M. , Bijl , RV , DE Graaf , RV , Vollebergh , W. , McKenzie , K. , & Van Os , J. 2003 Discrimination and delusional ideation . ... Bryant-Davis, T. and Ocampo, C. 2005. Racist incident–based trauma. ... & Mitchell, 198337. ...

International Journal of Culture and Mental Health

Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the developme... more Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the development of body image disturbance. No instruments however, differentiate the body image disturbance that might be experienced following a negative evaluation of the black physical body, (i.e., the black person), from that which might be experienced as a member of a stigmatised group, (i.e.,

The Internet Journal of World Health and Societal Politics

Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent... more Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent qualitative research conducted by myself would indicate that Western preference for some forms of philosophy, and the exclusion of others, continues to have grave consequences for ...

International Journal of Mental Health, 2007

Page 1. 26 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH 26 International Journal of Mental Health, vol.... more Page 1. 26 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH 26 International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 36, no. 4, Winter 2007–8, pp. 26–45. © 2008 ME Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0020–7411/2008 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/IMH0020-7411360403 ...

Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease In... more Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease Inhibitors (ePI) can develop Iatrogenic Cushing Syndrome (ICS) and adrenal insufficiency that did not appear to be associated with intralesional, intra-articular, inhaled or intranasal, topical glucocorticoid therapy. Given the expected reduction in the patient's capacity to remove cortisol from the body a high index of clinical suspicion is required for diagnosis. Case Report: This paper describes a 58-yearold man whose HIV ceased to be well-controlled on ePI-based Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) twice, and who developed Cushing syndromelike symptoms including keloid scars and faecal incontinence in association with a chronic cortisolaemia. Conclusion: Enhanced protease inhibitors have proven an important course of treatment in the fight against HIV/AIDS. However; these very powerful drugs can have unintended consequences that are not very well documented. As stress and its relation to cortisol are well documented, future should attempt to examine the relationship between perceived stress and HIV viral load and determine how serum cortisol might mediate the relationship between psychological stress and viral load in patients taking ePI ART.

. International Journal of Current Research, 2020

Introduction: Within context societal moral indignation and panic expressed in response to recent... more Introduction: Within context societal moral indignation and panic expressed in response to recent increases in urban violence and death amongst young adults in the UK, some researchers are asking whether exposure to video game violence (EVGV) might be a contributing factor. Methods: Using a correlational design, and web-based survey methods to collect data, the author examined the relationship between violent video games, moral disengagement, competitiveness, and trait aggression. Results: Commensurate with other studies, a small significant positive correlation was found between exposure to video game violence (EVGV) and reported trait aggression. Multiple regression revealed that EVGV explained an additional 4.5% of the reported trait aggression after controlling for age, sex, average violent video game difficulty, average violent video game pace of action, moral disengagement, and trait competitiveness. Conclusion: Moral disengagement might better explain trait aggression in young people exposed to video game violence in the UK, but violent video games along with other risk factors can act as potential primers for aggressive behaviours and cognition. Implications for public and mental health are discussed.

The British Journal of Counselling & Guidance, 2019

Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychotherapists, c... more Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychotherapists, clients may reveal illicit fantasies where it is unclear whether he or she is acting out his or her illicit fantasies. Using web-based survey methods to collect qualitative data, I explored therapists' decision-making when clients disclose illicit fantasies in such circumstances. Data analysed thematically revealed that most therapists were confident in asking direct questions about illicit fantasies. However, therapists working in private practice appeared to be less likely to estimate risk or “dangerousness” objectively than therapists working in the NHS were. Implications for mental health care practice are considered.

International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, 2010

Despite the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and sch... more Despite the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, Black people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK continue to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and over-represented within the mental health care system. The reasons why remain illusive; however, some researchers have begun asking whether racism plays an integral part. Given that Black people often given racism as a contributing factor to their mental state, and the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, this study examined the relation between mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism and dissociative experiences as evidence of a trauma-related response. A web-based questionnaire was responded to by 255 self-defined Black subscribers to an Ethnic Minority Research Panel. Results showed that youth, low academic achievement, mental representations of self in relation to people who made derogatory race-related comments about others and low self-esteem contributed significantly to the variation in reported dissociative experiences, overall. Therefore, processing of race-related information impacted on the Dissociative Experiences Scale and, therefore, might also explain the over representation of Black people within the mental health system in the UK.

International Journal of Culture and Health, 2012

Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the developme... more Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the development of body image disturbance. No instruments however, differentiate the body image disturbance that might be experienced following a negative evaluation of the black physical body, (i.e., the black person), from that which might be experienced as a member of a stigmatised group, (i.e., the Black group). Therefore, a cross-sectional study was designed to determine which aspects of the black physical body black people believe cause others concern and the consequences of their preoccupation with the concerns of others. Two hundred and fifty-seven self-defined black members of a research panel completed a web-based questionnaire using the ‘Racialised Body Image Disturbance Scale (RBIDS)’. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the RBIDS measured two dimensions: (1) perceived race-related concerns, preoccupations and emotional distress and (2) social dysfunction. Perceived race-related concerns and preoccupations were race-related weight/body shape, skin tone, hair texture and facial features. The effects of respondents' preoccupation with other people's race-related concerns was low self-confidence, frustration, anxiety and depression, identity insecurity and confusion, excessive wariness of others, desire to fix concerns and fear of interference with their life chances. Further research should examine the relation between race-based rejection sensitivity and RBIDS.

Journal of Case Reports and Images in Infect Dis, 2019

Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease In... more Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease Inhibitors (ePI) can develop Iatrogenic Cushing Syndrome (ICS) and adrenal insufficiency that did not appear to be associated with intralesional, intra-articular, inhaled or intranasal, topical glucocorticoid therapy. Given the expected reduction in the patient’s capacity to remove cortisol from the body a high index of clinical suspicion is required for diagnosis. Case Report: This paper describes a 58-yearold man whose HIV ceased to be well-controlled on ePI-based Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) twice, and who developed Cushing syndromelike symptoms including keloid scars and faecal incontinence in association with a chronic cortisolaemia. Conclusion: Enhanced protease inhibitors have proven an important course of treatment in the fight against HIV/AIDS. However; these very powerful drugs can have unintended consequences that are not very well documented. As stress and its relation to cortisol are well documented, future should attempt to examine the relationship between perceived stress and HIV viral load and determine how serum cortisol might mediate the relationship between psychological stress and viral load in patients taking ePI ART.

International Journal of Mental Health, 2009

Visibly black people of African and African-Caribbean descent (black people) are 2-5 times more l... more Visibly black people of African and African-Caribbean descent (black people) are 2-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses than their counterparts from other ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom. However, the symptomology of psychotic illnesses and dissociative experiences are difficult to differentiate. Interestingly, black people detained under the Mental Health Act are more likely to give perceived racism as the cause of their emotional distress than their counterparts from other ethnic groups, but there is very little indication in the literature as to how perceived racism might exert its effect on black people's mental health. This study is designed to construct and test a theoretical model that related mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism, with consequential racialized body image disturbance, dissociative experiences, and low global self-esteem. A Web-based questionnaire comprised of the Dissociative Experiences Scale II, Object Relations and Social Cognition Scale of Racial Identity, Racialized Body Image Disturbance Scale, and Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale was used to collect the data. As predicted, mental representations indicative of the subjective experience of racism were found to be directly related to racialized body image disturbance, dissociative experiences, and low self-esteem that could occur as a consequence of race-related incidents. However, the best predictors of dissociative experiences in Black people were low self-esteem, mental representations of indirect experience of racism, low academic achievement, young age, radicalized body image disturbance, and the predictors varied according gender and ethnicity.

International Journal of Mental Health, 2008

Background: Despite changes in legislation to prohibit racial discrimination and improve race rel... more Background: Despite changes in legislation to prohibit racial discrimination and improve race relations, black men in the United Kingdom repeatedly find themselves confronted with limited situations from which there appears to be no avoidance or escape. Material: This qualitative study attempts to gain some understanding of the process of becoming ill from the interviewees' point of view. The study was conducted in two different mental health-care settings situated in the South London area. A grounded theory approach to the date collection and analysis was used to elucidate this experience. The criteria for inclusion were that participants had to identify themselves as being black, male, over the age of 18, and living with severe mental illness. Eleven men who fulfilled the criteria agreed to be interviewed and have their interviews tape-recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were analysed thematically for constructs that indicated how they came to be detained under the Mental Health Act of 1983. Discussion: Seven themes are revealed within the narratives of participant patients, (i.e., place of origin, sex, age, family and friends, education, work, and initial and most recent admission to hospital). The narratives provide evidence in support of the view that black men detained under the Mental Health Act usually have great insight into the reality of their own lived-worlds, but they are less likely to receive psychological interventions to help clarify and resolve issues that had arisen and are, therefore, at risk of readmission. Conclusions: Black men detained under the Mental Health Act presented with psychological issues that might be best addressed by suitably trained psychological therapist as opposed to medication.

The Internet Journal of World Health and Societal Politics, 2006

Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent... more Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent qualitative research conducted by myself would indicate that Western preference for some forms of philosophy, and the exclusion of others, continues to have grave consequences for the psychological treatment offered to Black and minority ethnic people in the UK. None of the participants interviewed were receiving psychological interventions and yet their narratives suggested that some description and clarification of their experiences to date may have helped and supported them in their moment of crisis (De Maynard, 2005).

In this article, a critical approach to the literature pertaining to the human condition from a European perspective was undertaken to determine whether something of the "black human condition" revealed itself. It was found that similarities could be made between the Jewish experience of detention in prison camps during the war, and that of the black man's detention within prisons and mental health institutions, today. Like the Jew, the black man too appears imprisoned within his own embodiment, and through his narratives something of the black human condition today revealed itself.

In conclusion, it would seem that much of the emotional distress experienced by black men is related to the difficulty they have coping with the negativity directed at that within which they are embodied. Like the Jew, the black man is separated out, but he is never made independent. To gain some understanding of the black human condition, mental health workers should abandon the safety and security of symptom control and consider the possibility that no amount of psychiatric drugs will ever resolve the issues of adequacy, failure, racial discrimination, powerlessness, and hopelessness.

British Journal of Guidance & Counselling

ABSTRACT Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychother... more ABSTRACT Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychotherapists, clients may reveal illicit fantasies where it is unclear whether he or she is acting out his or her illicit fantasies. Using web-based survey methods to collect qualitative data, I explored therapists' decision-making when clients disclose illicit fantasies in such circumstances. Data analysed thematically revealed that most therapists were confident in asking direct questions about illicit fantasies. However, therapists working in private practice appeared to be less likely to estimate risk or “dangerousness” objectively than therapists working in the NHS were. Implications for mental health care practice are considered.

International Journal of Culture and Mental Health

... Indeed, Janssen et al. (200342. Janssen , I. , Hanssen , M. , Bak , M. , Bijl , RV , DE Graaf... more ... Indeed, Janssen et al. (200342. Janssen , I. , Hanssen , M. , Bak , M. , Bijl , RV , DE Graaf , RV , Vollebergh , W. , McKenzie , K. , & Van Os , J. 2003 Discrimination and delusional ideation . ... Bryant-Davis, T. and Ocampo, C. 2005. Racist incident–based trauma. ... & Mitchell, 198337. ...

International Journal of Culture and Mental Health

Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the developme... more Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the development of body image disturbance. No instruments however, differentiate the body image disturbance that might be experienced following a negative evaluation of the black physical body, (i.e., the black person), from that which might be experienced as a member of a stigmatised group, (i.e.,

The Internet Journal of World Health and Societal Politics

Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent... more Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent qualitative research conducted by myself would indicate that Western preference for some forms of philosophy, and the exclusion of others, continues to have grave consequences for ...

International Journal of Mental Health, 2007

Page 1. 26 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH 26 International Journal of Mental Health, vol.... more Page 1. 26 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MENTAL HEALTH 26 International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 36, no. 4, Winter 2007–8, pp. 26–45. © 2008 ME Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0020–7411/2008 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/IMH0020-7411360403 ...

Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease In... more Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease Inhibitors (ePI) can develop Iatrogenic Cushing Syndrome (ICS) and adrenal insufficiency that did not appear to be associated with intralesional, intra-articular, inhaled or intranasal, topical glucocorticoid therapy. Given the expected reduction in the patient's capacity to remove cortisol from the body a high index of clinical suspicion is required for diagnosis. Case Report: This paper describes a 58-yearold man whose HIV ceased to be well-controlled on ePI-based Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) twice, and who developed Cushing syndromelike symptoms including keloid scars and faecal incontinence in association with a chronic cortisolaemia. Conclusion: Enhanced protease inhibitors have proven an important course of treatment in the fight against HIV/AIDS. However; these very powerful drugs can have unintended consequences that are not very well documented. As stress and its relation to cortisol are well documented, future should attempt to examine the relationship between perceived stress and HIV viral load and determine how serum cortisol might mediate the relationship between psychological stress and viral load in patients taking ePI ART.

. International Journal of Current Research, 2020

Introduction: Within context societal moral indignation and panic expressed in response to recent... more Introduction: Within context societal moral indignation and panic expressed in response to recent increases in urban violence and death amongst young adults in the UK, some researchers are asking whether exposure to video game violence (EVGV) might be a contributing factor. Methods: Using a correlational design, and web-based survey methods to collect data, the author examined the relationship between violent video games, moral disengagement, competitiveness, and trait aggression. Results: Commensurate with other studies, a small significant positive correlation was found between exposure to video game violence (EVGV) and reported trait aggression. Multiple regression revealed that EVGV explained an additional 4.5% of the reported trait aggression after controlling for age, sex, average violent video game difficulty, average violent video game pace of action, moral disengagement, and trait competitiveness. Conclusion: Moral disengagement might better explain trait aggression in young people exposed to video game violence in the UK, but violent video games along with other risk factors can act as potential primers for aggressive behaviours and cognition. Implications for public and mental health are discussed.

The British Journal of Counselling & Guidance, 2019

Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychotherapists, c... more Within the context of psychological counsellors and therapeutic encounters of psychotherapists, clients may reveal illicit fantasies where it is unclear whether he or she is acting out his or her illicit fantasies. Using web-based survey methods to collect qualitative data, I explored therapists' decision-making when clients disclose illicit fantasies in such circumstances. Data analysed thematically revealed that most therapists were confident in asking direct questions about illicit fantasies. However, therapists working in private practice appeared to be less likely to estimate risk or “dangerousness” objectively than therapists working in the NHS were. Implications for mental health care practice are considered.

International Journal of Culture and Mental Health, 2010

Despite the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and sch... more Despite the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, Black people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK continue to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and over-represented within the mental health care system. The reasons why remain illusive; however, some researchers have begun asking whether racism plays an integral part. Given that Black people often given racism as a contributing factor to their mental state, and the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, this study examined the relation between mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism and dissociative experiences as evidence of a trauma-related response. A web-based questionnaire was responded to by 255 self-defined Black subscribers to an Ethnic Minority Research Panel. Results showed that youth, low academic achievement, mental representations of self in relation to people who made derogatory race-related comments about others and low self-esteem contributed significantly to the variation in reported dissociative experiences, overall. Therefore, processing of race-related information impacted on the Dissociative Experiences Scale and, therefore, might also explain the over representation of Black people within the mental health system in the UK.

International Journal of Culture and Health, 2012

Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the developme... more Many studies have shown that a negative evaluation of the physical body can lead to the development of body image disturbance. No instruments however, differentiate the body image disturbance that might be experienced following a negative evaluation of the black physical body, (i.e., the black person), from that which might be experienced as a member of a stigmatised group, (i.e., the Black group). Therefore, a cross-sectional study was designed to determine which aspects of the black physical body black people believe cause others concern and the consequences of their preoccupation with the concerns of others. Two hundred and fifty-seven self-defined black members of a research panel completed a web-based questionnaire using the ‘Racialised Body Image Disturbance Scale (RBIDS)’. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the RBIDS measured two dimensions: (1) perceived race-related concerns, preoccupations and emotional distress and (2) social dysfunction. Perceived race-related concerns and preoccupations were race-related weight/body shape, skin tone, hair texture and facial features. The effects of respondents' preoccupation with other people's race-related concerns was low self-confidence, frustration, anxiety and depression, identity insecurity and confusion, excessive wariness of others, desire to fix concerns and fear of interference with their life chances. Further research should examine the relation between race-based rejection sensitivity and RBIDS.

Journal of Case Reports and Images in Infect Dis, 2019

Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease In... more Introduction: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV+ve) positive patients taking enhanced Protease Inhibitors (ePI) can develop Iatrogenic Cushing Syndrome (ICS) and adrenal insufficiency that did not appear to be associated with intralesional, intra-articular, inhaled or intranasal, topical glucocorticoid therapy. Given the expected reduction in the patient’s capacity to remove cortisol from the body a high index of clinical suspicion is required for diagnosis. Case Report: This paper describes a 58-yearold man whose HIV ceased to be well-controlled on ePI-based Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) twice, and who developed Cushing syndromelike symptoms including keloid scars and faecal incontinence in association with a chronic cortisolaemia. Conclusion: Enhanced protease inhibitors have proven an important course of treatment in the fight against HIV/AIDS. However; these very powerful drugs can have unintended consequences that are not very well documented. As stress and its relation to cortisol are well documented, future should attempt to examine the relationship between perceived stress and HIV viral load and determine how serum cortisol might mediate the relationship between psychological stress and viral load in patients taking ePI ART.

International Journal of Mental Health, 2009

Visibly black people of African and African-Caribbean descent (black people) are 2-5 times more l... more Visibly black people of African and African-Caribbean descent (black people) are 2-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses than their counterparts from other ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom. However, the symptomology of psychotic illnesses and dissociative experiences are difficult to differentiate. Interestingly, black people detained under the Mental Health Act are more likely to give perceived racism as the cause of their emotional distress than their counterparts from other ethnic groups, but there is very little indication in the literature as to how perceived racism might exert its effect on black people's mental health. This study is designed to construct and test a theoretical model that related mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism, with consequential racialized body image disturbance, dissociative experiences, and low global self-esteem. A Web-based questionnaire comprised of the Dissociative Experiences Scale II, Object Relations and Social Cognition Scale of Racial Identity, Racialized Body Image Disturbance Scale, and Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale was used to collect the data. As predicted, mental representations indicative of the subjective experience of racism were found to be directly related to racialized body image disturbance, dissociative experiences, and low self-esteem that could occur as a consequence of race-related incidents. However, the best predictors of dissociative experiences in Black people were low self-esteem, mental representations of indirect experience of racism, low academic achievement, young age, radicalized body image disturbance, and the predictors varied according gender and ethnicity.

International Journal of Mental Health, 2008

Background: Despite changes in legislation to prohibit racial discrimination and improve race rel... more Background: Despite changes in legislation to prohibit racial discrimination and improve race relations, black men in the United Kingdom repeatedly find themselves confronted with limited situations from which there appears to be no avoidance or escape. Material: This qualitative study attempts to gain some understanding of the process of becoming ill from the interviewees' point of view. The study was conducted in two different mental health-care settings situated in the South London area. A grounded theory approach to the date collection and analysis was used to elucidate this experience. The criteria for inclusion were that participants had to identify themselves as being black, male, over the age of 18, and living with severe mental illness. Eleven men who fulfilled the criteria agreed to be interviewed and have their interviews tape-recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were analysed thematically for constructs that indicated how they came to be detained under the Mental Health Act of 1983. Discussion: Seven themes are revealed within the narratives of participant patients, (i.e., place of origin, sex, age, family and friends, education, work, and initial and most recent admission to hospital). The narratives provide evidence in support of the view that black men detained under the Mental Health Act usually have great insight into the reality of their own lived-worlds, but they are less likely to receive psychological interventions to help clarify and resolve issues that had arisen and are, therefore, at risk of readmission. Conclusions: Black men detained under the Mental Health Act presented with psychological issues that might be best addressed by suitably trained psychological therapist as opposed to medication.

The Internet Journal of World Health and Societal Politics, 2006

Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent... more Black and minority ethnic people are still over-represented in our mental institutions and recent qualitative research conducted by myself would indicate that Western preference for some forms of philosophy, and the exclusion of others, continues to have grave consequences for the psychological treatment offered to Black and minority ethnic people in the UK. None of the participants interviewed were receiving psychological interventions and yet their narratives suggested that some description and clarification of their experiences to date may have helped and supported them in their moment of crisis (De Maynard, 2005).

In this article, a critical approach to the literature pertaining to the human condition from a European perspective was undertaken to determine whether something of the "black human condition" revealed itself. It was found that similarities could be made between the Jewish experience of detention in prison camps during the war, and that of the black man's detention within prisons and mental health institutions, today. Like the Jew, the black man too appears imprisoned within his own embodiment, and through his narratives something of the black human condition today revealed itself.

In conclusion, it would seem that much of the emotional distress experienced by black men is related to the difficulty they have coping with the negativity directed at that within which they are embodied. Like the Jew, the black man is separated out, but he is never made independent. To gain some understanding of the black human condition, mental health workers should abandon the safety and security of symptom control and consider the possibility that no amount of psychiatric drugs will ever resolve the issues of adequacy, failure, racial discrimination, powerlessness, and hopelessness.