Political abuse of psychiatry

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Political abuse of psychiatry, also known as punitive psychiatry, refers to the misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, detention, and treatment to suppress individual or group human rights in society.[1][2]: 491  This abuse involves the deliberate psychiatric diagnosis of individuals who require neither psychiatric restraint nor treatment, often for political purposes.[3]

Psychiatrists have been implicated in human rights abuses worldwide, particularly in states where diagnostic criteria for mental illness are expanded to include political disobedience.[4]: 6  Scholars have long observed that government and medical institutions tend to label threats to authority as mentally ill during periods of political unrest.[5]: 14  In many countries, political prisoners are confined and abused in psychiatric hospitals.[6]: 3 [7]

Psychiatry is uniquely vulnerable to being used for abusive purposes compared to other specialties of medicine.[8]: 65  The power to diagnose mental illness allows the state to detain individuals against their will and administer unnecessary treatments under the guise of serving both individual and societal interests.[8]: 65  This can be exploited to circumvent standard legal procedures for determining guilt or innocence, effectively incarcerating political dissidents while avoiding public scrutiny.[8]: 65 

The use of psychiatric hospitals instead of prisons also prevents the victims from receiving legal aid, makes indefinite incarceration possible, and discredits the individual and their ideas.[9]: 29  This allows authorities to avoid open trials when deemed undesirable.[9]: 29 

The political abuse of medical power, particularly in psychiatry, has a long history, including notable examples during the Nazi era and Soviet rule, where religious and political dissenters were labeled "mentally ill" and subjected to inhumane "treatments".[10][11] From the 1960s to 1986, systematic psychiatric abuse for political and ideological purposes was reported in the Soviet Union, with occasional occurrences in other Eastern European countries like Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.[12][8]: 66 

The practice of incarcerating religious and political dissidents in psychiatric hospitals in the Eastern Bloc and the former USSR severely damaged the credibility of psychiatric practice in these states and drew strong condemnation from the international community.[10][13] Similar abuses have been reported in the People's Republic of China.[1] Psychiatric diagnoses, such as "sluggish schizophrenia" in the USSR, were specifically developed and used for political purposes.[14]: 77  In the United States, psychiatry was used to control African-American slaves, a practice that some argue continues to this day.[15]

  1. ^ a b van Voren, Robert (January 2010). "Political Abuse of Psychiatry—An Historical Overview". Schizophrenia Bulletin. 36 (1): 33–35. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbp119. PMC 2800147. PMID 19892821.
  2. ^ Helmchen, Hanfried; Sartorius, Norman (2010). Ethics in Psychiatry: European Contributions. Springer. p. 491. ISBN 978-90-481-8720-1.
  3. ^ Глузман, Семён (January 2010). Этиология злоупотреблений в психиатрии: попытка мультидисциплинарного анализа. Нейроnews: Психоневрология и нейропсихиатрия (in Russian) (20). Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2014-01-02.
  4. ^ Semple, David; Smyth, Roger; Burns, Jonathan (2005). Oxford handbook of psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-19-852783-1.
  5. ^ Metzl, Jonathan (2010). The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-8592-9.
  6. ^ Noll, Richard (2007). The encyclopedia of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Infobase Publishing. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-8160-6405-2.
  7. ^ Bonnie, Richard (2002). "Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union and in China: Complexities and Controversies" (PDF). Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. 30 (1): 136–144. PMID 11931362. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 12 December 2010.
  8. ^ a b c d British Medical Association (1992). Medicine betrayed: the participation of doctors in human rights abuses. Zed Books. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-85649-104-4.
  9. ^ a b Veenhoven, Willem; Ewing, Winifred; Samenlevingen, Stichting (1975). Case studies on human rights and fundamental freedoms: a world survey. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 29. ISBN 978-90-247-1780-4.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference USS1984 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Shah, Ruchita; Basu, Debasish (July–September 2010). "Coercion in psychiatric care: Global and Indian perspective". Indian Journal of Psychiatry. 52 (3): 203–206. doi:10.4103/0019-5545.70971. PMC 2990818. PMID 21180403.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Stan2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Declan, Lyons; Art, O'Malley (2002). "The labelling of dissent — politics and psychiatry behind the Great Wall". The Psychiatrist. 26 (12): 443–444. doi:10.1192/pb.26.12.443.
  14. ^ Katona, Cornelius; Robertson, Mary (2005). Psychiatry at a glance. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-4051-2404-1.
  15. ^ Metzl, Jonathan Michel (2011). The protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease. Boston, Mass: Beacon. ISBN 978-0-8070-0127-1.