Family separation in the U.S. has a dark history—from slavery and Indian boarding schools to mass incarceration, immigrant detention, and foster care. Child mental healthcare too often reinforces these systems, separating families under the guise of "treatment" and "protection." Learn more: “The Color of Child Protection in America: Antiracism and Abolition in Child Mental Health.”

Each year, 2 million people face crisis interventions, with 21-38% of 911 calls related to mental health or non-criminal concerns. Tragically, nearly 2,000 lives are lost annually due to police involvement. One potential solution? The SHIELD Act, which calls for training mental health responders in compassionate, police-free care. In the names of Daniel Prude, Yong Yang, and so many others, it’s time to reimagine crisis support and create a system that truly heals.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, often called the Father of American Psychiatry, is not my father of psychiatry—or yours. Despite his abolitionist stance, Rush held racist beliefs, including the idea that Black people suffered from a "leprosy" called negritude, curable only by becoming white. These harmful ideas laid the groundwork for scientific racism in healthcare, shaping inequities that persist today. To build an antiracist psychiatry today, we must confront these roots and reimagine the field’s future.

ODD is often misunderstood, especially in Black and Brown communities. Many kids labeled with ODD are reacting to trauma, not engaging in defiance. Overdiagnosis fuels punitive measures like the school-to-prison pipeline. It’s time to prioritize compassion and advocate for humane care.

Over 50% of Black children in the U.S. are reported to Child Protective Services, but mandated reporting often harms more than it helps. It’s time to shift from: surveillance to support, stigma to strength-based care, and family separation to family preservation. The solution is mandated supporting: focus on strengths to rehumanize families, educate families on their rights, and advocate for housing, healthcare, and stability. Challenging systemic bias helps build a future where families thrive.

This lecture explores slavery's enduring impact on American medicine and psychiatry, transforming how we understand and address inequities today. It is published by MedEdPORTAL, the flagship journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and represents the first teaching module on this critical history. Recordings related to this material have garnered thousands of views.

In the 1990s, New York researchers injected Black and Brown boys, aged 6 to 10, with the now-banned drug fenfluramine to study "violence risk," using sealed records of their brothers labeled as "delinquents." Despite public outrage, the NIMH found no wrongdoing.

"Full Informed Consent" highlights the hidden harms in mental healthcare, like coercion, racism, and police involvement. These systemic issues often go unaddressed in standard care but are crucial for informed decisions.