PMID: 11933407Apr 6, 2002Paper

Lessons from history: the politics of psychiatry in the USSR

Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing
I Spencer

Abstract

The political-economic base of society affects every aspect of it, including nursing and psychiatry. This can be demonstrated by making a historical analysis of societies with different political-economic systems. Psychiatry in the USSR took a different form to psychiatry in the West. Differences included the diagnostic categories used and treatments employed. This can be investigated by examining accounts of clinical practice. Soviet psychiatry was also used for the systematic incarceration of political dissidents. Some commentators have drawn on the Soviet experience and used it to support an argument that psychiatry operates as a form of social control in the West as well as the USSR. This article shows how psychiatric abuse in the USSR was a historically specific response to a particular situation. Therefore some of the conclusions about Western psychiatry extrapolated from the Soviet experience are unsupportable. Whatever the role of psychiatry in the West, its mechanism is qualitatively different to that which existed in the USSR. In order to understand why Soviet medical workers were co-opted into the conscious abuse of psychiatry, it is essential to understand the specific nature of the USSR. This does not necessarily a...Continue Reading

References

Jul 1, 1979·Archives of General Psychiatry·E P Kazanetz
Jan 1, 1977·Schizophrenia Bulletin·J Holland, I V Shakhmatova-Pavlova
Sep 16, 1989·Lancet·S Gluzman
Jul 25, 2000·Journal of Advanced Nursing·J S Wells, C N McElwee
Aug 4, 1989·Science·D Joravsky

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Citations

Oct 11, 2005·Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology·Matthias C AngermeyerHerbert Matschinger
Jul 31, 2007·Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology·Georg SchomerusMatthias C Angermeyer
Oct 17, 2013·International Journal of Law and Psychiatry·Dan Healey
Jan 16, 2007·Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry·Francisco López-MuñozAhmed Okasha
Jul 7, 2021·Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing·Myles Balfe

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