Abstract
A feature of literature on mental health in Africa, as Dobb (1965) pointed out, is the extensive, often faulty, generalizations employed by researchers. Dobb illustrated this point in the writing of two notable psychiatrists in Africa. One psychiatrist, after a few years in Ghana, concluded that symptoms of European schizophrenics were the same symptoms seen in Africa. Another psychiatrist, after five years in Kenya, stated that the same illnesses are seen all over the world. Conditions observed in one African country were easily generalized to the whole continent. The assumption seems to be that all African tribal groupings shared a uniform and consistent sociological and psychological background and, therefore, the same customs traditions, and so on. Given the variability that exists in African societies, these assumptions are fallacious. This writer does not pretend to speak for Africa but only in terms of sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria specifically.
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