POLITICIZATION OF PSYCHIATRY AS A DETERMINANT OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE: AN ESSAY ON DISCIPLINING DISSIDENTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/Keywords:
psychiatry, dissidents, Serbsky Center, socialism, discipline, sluggish schizophreniaAbstract
The paper analyzes the phenomenon of politicization of psychiatry as an ideological tool of repressive socialist regimes in the period from the 60s to the 80s of the 20th century. The aim of this paper is to clarify and synthesize the existing theoretical and empirical knowledge on the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the: Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, SFRY, Romania and Argentina, by using the case study method. The political practice of repressive regimes shows continuity in the manipulation of psychiatric ethics for the sake of discrediting and politically disciplining dissidents. Based on the arbitrary, politically motivated and suggested view of mental disorders, all politically unorthodox thinking is modified. Through this matrix, psychiatry is placed in the function of usurping the power and interest of political empire. The real number of political prisoners is mummified through the forced hospitalization of ”mentally ill” dissidents. Psychiatric concentration camps have become ideological and only seemingly more subtle substitutes for gulags and labor camps. Psychocamps essentially represented the stages of sadism on which the spirit and body of political opponents were exposed to inhuman biopolitical engineering.
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