Frantz Fanon’s psycho-politics: From psychiatry to revolution

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between psychiatry and politics in the thought of Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. The article aims to demonstrate that Fanon developed a unique approach to psycho-politics that dialectically engages psychiatry and politics from his earliest works. Fanon’s psycho-politics can be traced from his work in the early 1950s, namely his doctoral dissertation and Black Skin, White Masks (1952). From his doctoral dissertation to Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon tries to explain colonialism as a psychiatrist. This search manifests itself again in Fanon’s best-known work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961). Although The Wretched of the Earth is known as the influential work of a political militant, it is the book of a scientist-thinker who analyzes colonialism from a psychiatric perspective. However, the connection between Fanon’s psychiatric thought and practice and his political writings has not been sufficiently revealed. Fanon has been thought of as a ‟Third World militant.” But there is a dialectical relationship between Fanon’s theory and practice of psychiatry and his political thought. Understanding Fanon’s thought can only be possible by analyzing its psycho-political structure. The aim of this article is to examine the development of Fanon’s political thought through his earliest psychiatric writings and clinical practice, to link psychiatric theory and practice to his political theory, and thus to outline Fanon’s psycho-politics.