Data from Baltimore studies indicate that Blacks do not have higher rates for psychoses, psychoneuroses, or psychopathological disorders, but do for mental deficiency.

“Clinicians have stated that, because of the inability of white psychiatrists to comprehend the nuances of behavior and speech in Blacks, there is a tendency to overdiagnose psychoses among Blacks.”

“White middle-class examiners are, for cultural reasons or familiarity with symptoms, more likely to be aware of psychoneurotic manifestations in whites. There is also a problem of the channeling and content of neurotic manifestations and minority group variations thereof. Certain behaviors such as anxiety, hostility and the like may take different forms and thereby be underdetected in groups removed from one’s own. The different meanings that attach to the same gestures, words and symbols on a class and caste basis may also play some role in this discrepancy.”

“As far as the psychoneuroses and psychophysiological disorders are concerned…the enormous differences found, I believe to be largely artifacts consequent to the unreliability of diagnosis, which in turn may follow upon class and caste factors in both examiners and the examined. A rigorous and intensive attempt at definition of these conditions and the establishment of reliable and valid criteria is long overdue.”