FRANTZ FANON: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS - MEDICINE - 2025

Frantz Fanon was a Caribbean-born writer and philosopher who greatly influenced the revolutionary movements of the 1960s. Being consistent with his writings and ideas, Fanon supported the independence of Algeria. In addition, Fanon was a psychiatrist and political theorist.

Fanon had a great participation treating combatants and non-combatants during the beginning of the Algerian Revolution in 1954. From the National Liberation Front (FLN) he tried to help in the overthrow of the French colonial forces, hegemony he had had since 1830.

He served in the French Army during World War II and received two decorations for his service. At the end of the war, he remained in France and studied Medicine at the University of Lyon. During that period he began to write one of his most emblematic works called Black Skin, White Masks.

Biography

He was born on July 20, 1925 in Fort de France, in Martinique, and died on December 6, 1961 in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. He was born into a middle-class family. His father was a civil servant.

He had the fortune to be educated in a privileged way in a school under the tutelage of another famous Martinic postcolonial theorist: Aime Cesaire.

Upon completing his basic medical studies, he entered a residency program in psychiatry at Saint Alban Hospital. Following her initial training in psychiatry, she got a job as a psychiatrist in Africa.

At first he intended to reside in Senegal, but when he did not receive job offers, he accepted the position of head of service in the largest psychiatric complex in Algeria: the Blida-Jonville Hospital.

Work experience

During this time of conflict in Algeria, Fanon was recognized for implementing a number of innovative treatment methods and programs within the hospital. Fanon was an extremely talented and capable physician, but he was progressively affected by his work.

As he treated his patients, he grew exponentially sympathetic to the revolutionaries in their struggle against colonialism. This generated great concern in him, especially when he had to face the followers of the French colonial power.

He finally resigned from the hospital in 1956. In his resignation letter he stated that the decision was caused by his inability as an individual to bear the responsibility at any cost.

Political participation in the FLN

After this period, Fanon devoted his time and attention to working with the National Liberation Front (FLN) in their fight for independence. By January 1957 the French government ordered his expulsion from Algeria for his support of the FLN.

During this time Fanon rendered his medical services to the FLN fighters. He also trained medical teams and wrote about the Algerian Revolution in African and French publications.

In 1960 Fanon's health began to deteriorate when he was diagnosed with leukemia. For this reason, he was forced to travel great distances in search of treatment. Realizing the seriousness of his condition, he dedicated himself to finalizing his writing entitled The condemned of the earth.

For a long time, academic interest in Fanon's work had been focused primarily on his political texts. His publications Black Skin, White Mask and The Condemned of the Earth analyze the culture and politics of the oppression of the dominant over the oppressed within a colonial or post-colonial system.

Other publications

His publications on political and cultural issues overshadowed his writings on psychiatry. In fact, throughout his career Fanon published texts of his own and with collaborators on psychiatry. Until today these publications remain little studied.

Fanon was a forerunner of sociotherapy - or as it is known today, institutional psychotherapy. He was also a forerunner in the development of the theoretical field of the discipline, beginning with his thesis, which he wrote at the age of 26.

In his thesis he dealt with mental disorders, changes in character and other symptoms. Frantz Fanon links three dimensions of alienation: the subjective, the cultural and the political.

In his letter of resignation to the governor general of Algeria, Fanon argues that caring for and healing patients of insanity was about restoring freedom to the madman.

Fanon held the view that people could lose their freedom because of madness. Therefore, according to him, psychiatry was a tool to restore freedom to the sick.

Contributions to psychiatry

In all of Fanon's psychiatric texts, it is appreciated that his main concern was the enabling of an authentic discourse that would re-establish an environment that would allow each subject to retake the traces of real physical events.

For Fanon, establishing an environment that allows each subject to resume the traces of a life left behind also requires a profound change in the daily functions of hospitals.

It should be noted that Fanon, together with the psychiatrist Geronimi, established a new form of psychiatric institution in Tunes in 1959, with the Carles-Nicolle General Hospital. It was the first hospital of its kind in the world.

In one of his published articles Fanon also expressed his ideas on how patients, whom he preferred to call guests, should be treated.

From his point of view, the "guests" should be treated without them breaking with their day to day. Nor should there be a break in his family context or his professional context.

In addition to that, he considered that the day hospital left a space for the possibility that the doctor-patient relationship could be an encounter between two freedoms.

In this context, all staff were included: from medical staff, doctors, interns, and nurses to social workers and administrative staff.

References

1. Gibson, N. and Beneduce, R. (2017) Frantz Fanon, Psychiatry and Politics. Rowman and Littlefield International. Recovered in: libgen.io
2. Senkyo-Out, A (1996) Fanon's Dialectic of Experience. Harvard University Press. Recovered in: libgen.io
3. Hudis, P. (2015) Frantz Fanon, Philosopher of the Barricades. Pluto Press. Recovered in: libgen.io
4. De Oto, A. (2003) Frantz Fanon: Politics and poetics of the post colonial subject. Center for Asian and African Studies. Recovered in: libgen.io
5. Torrell, Jospe. Frantz Fanon. (2010) Recovered in: rebelion.org