Talk:Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union

People section

What does the header refer to? Expand please. --Shandris 07:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Liberalism is a Mental Disorder

Has this book something to do with psikhushkas? Apokrif 15:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

No -- ZZ 06:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Moscow Serbsky Institute

I collected a few references about Moscow Serbsky Institute. May be a separate article about this Institute is needed.

• Psychiatry’s painful past resurfaces - from Washigton Post 2002
• What made Chechen schoolchildren ill? - The Jamestown Foundation, March 30, 2006
• Speak Out? Are You Crazy? - by Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2006
• Institute of fools: Notes from the Serbsky - by Viktor Nekipelov
• War-related stress suspected in sick Chechen girls - by Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2006
• In Russia, Psychiatry Is Again a Tool Against Dissent - by By Peter Finn, Washington Post, September 30, 2006
• Psychiatry used as a tool against dissent - by Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, October 2, 2006
• [1]

Biophys 22:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Misatribution of information and original research

Biophys and Piotrus are using opinion of just two individuals on "tortures" as world-wide accepted and shared fact. This is violation of WP:ATTRIBUTION and WP:OR. Vlad fedorov 14:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

No, Vlad. This reference satisfies the demands of our policie quite well. But if you want more - no problem. Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry by Bloch and Reddaway is just one of the most popular academic books on that. We can also add references to their previous book, Psychiatric Terror: How Soviet Psychiatry is Used to Suppress Dissent, a book by Smith and Oleszczuk, No Asylum: State Psychiatric Repression in the Former U.S.S.R. (review), article by Spencer in Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Lessons from history: the politics of psychiatry in the USSR (which uses the term 'crime against humanity' for that type of torture); article by Alexeyeff in The Medical Journal of Australia, Abuse of psychiatry as a tool for political repression in the Soviet Union. All of those describe in detail the torturesof psikhushka; unfortunatly they are not freely available online. But here is an academic online treatment: Adam Bruno Ulam in Understanding the Cold War simply writes: "Psikhushka [is] the name for such torture chambers". There is no denying that there was a lot of torture in Russian psychiatry, and even if the specific name of psikushka is not that often used in English literature (ex. [2] and [3] for notes of tortures in Soviet psychiatry in general) there is no denying it was torture.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus is correct. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

On April 29, 1969 the head of KGB Yuri Andropov submitted to the Central Committee of CPSU a plan for creating of a network of psikhushkas

Can anybody cite the letter? Evgenia Albatz given as source is an ultra-liberal politician. And there already was a lot of psychiatric hospitals in the USSR so creating additional ones was not necessary. All of them were administered by ministry of healthcare, not KGB.--Dojarca 12:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, Party and KGB controlled every psychiatric hospital in the USSR, not only through ministry of healthcare, but also through their "own channels" (local Party organisation in each hospital and KGB informers in each hospital). But some measures were necessary to prepare a hospital for new "contingent". So, only certain psychiatric hospitals were used for political prisoners.Biophys 02:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia

Mikka, I just would like to note that Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia is non-existing disease, according to science. So, it was invented in the Soviet Union.Biophys 02:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I just would like to note that I am well-aware of this opinion, probably more and much earlier and first-hander than you. Please also make a not that sputnik was also invented in Soviet Union. In other words, the fact that it was invented in soviet union (it was not, btw. Writings of dissidents are not source of medical science, you should know) does not automatically disqualifies the thing. Soviet Union was populated by a large amount of decent people, and they deserve respect ("and you are lynching Negroes" :-). `'mikka 02:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you think that writing about human rights abuses shows disrespect of Soviet people? I looked Lynching in the United States - this is really impressive (looks much worse than Gulag for an average reader). Does it show disrespect of Americans? Perhaps it does, but this is more about things that should never happen again in US. People must know. Otherwise, this will be repeated. Biophys 20:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Name change needed

I was looking for the WP article on Soviet psychiatry/abuses, but there wasn't one. Except, um, actually there is one, it's just not listed under that name... because it's titled: "Psikhushka". (You saw that coming, right? :)

So, seeing as this is the English language Wikipedia -- and not the Russian language Wikipedia -- it seems to me that there's an obvious solution: Since this article is about Soviet psychiatry/abuses, and has already had a lot of work put into it, I propose that it be renamed to either Soviet psychiatry or Soviet psychiatric abuses. (Obviously, it will need a new lead sentence, and the material in the intro about Psikhushkas will probably go into another section -- whatever works). I'm okay with either of the titles I've suggested, but if other people have a preference, please share your views. Cgingold 06:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this article should stay because word "Psikhushka" can be found in English sources. It is notable, etc. On the other hand, you are right: at least one or two additional articles should be created, one of which is Punitive psychiatry and another is Soviet psychiatry (these are two different subjects).Biophys 04:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Some links

Preliminary Report on Psychiatric Violations of Human Rights in Russia, April 1999 by Citizens Commission on Human Rights (a controversial organization)

Summary of the Report On the Findings of the Investigation by the Commission on Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression During the Soviet Era Biophys 05:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Russia: Is Coercive Psychology Staging A Comeback?

[4] [5] Biophys 05:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

An editor at haloperidol suggested : Anna Politkovskaya (2004). Putin's Russia. Harvill Press. ISBN 9781843430506. OCLC 456111670. I won't comment further, not having seen its content. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Quotation

Maurice Carbonaro, thanks you for inserting the quotation with the author's exact words into the article Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union. It may actually be better to cite the derogatory term in such way as you cited it when you noted that “This does NOT endorse in ANY way the fact that I support the use of the term "Negro" at all. Because is derogatory.” However, I cited the term in the reworded phrase to avoid overquoting, since the article has too many quotations. Psychiatrick (talk) 14:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:41, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union → Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union — The term ‘political abuse of psychiatry’ is more common and used in most sources including one with the good exact definition:

“ Political abuse of psychiatry refers to the misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, treatment and detention for the purposes of obstructing the fundamental human rights of certain individuals and groups in a given society. ” — van Voren R., (2010) Political Abuse of Psychiatry—An Historical Overview. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 36 (1): 33–35.

I have not managed to find any source for the first phrase of the article “In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), psychiatry was sometimes used for punitive purposes.” That is why I decided to move the article. If and when the article is moved, its first phrase will be “Political abuse of psychiatry is the misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, detention and treatment for the purposes of obstructing the fundamental human rights of certain groups and individuals in a society”, and this phrase will be confirmed by the source cited above. Psychiatrick (talk) 08:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

• Agree That is a better title because it is sourced in academic writing. Perhaps you could look through the literature and see what the most common term is. TFD (talk) 04:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.