HISTORY LESSON: Psychology and the ABUSE BY STATE
HISTORY LESSON: Psychology and the ABUSE BY STATE part 1
Psychiatric diagnosis and subsequent involuntary hospitalization have been
used to stifle political dissent. Particularly during the past decade, it has been
revealed that such political psychiatry is heavily relied upon in the Soviet
Union. At least 210 cases of sane people who were interned in Soviet
prison-hospitals for political reasons have been reported (Block and Reddaway,
1977). Others claim even higher figures (see Podrabenek, in Fireside,
1979).
How is this done? And how especially in the Soviet Union, where the legal
safeguards against abuse of involuntary commitment procedures are clearly
stronger than they are in many other countries? The Soviet code, for example,
allows the individual's family to nominate one or more psychiatrists to
the examining commission; it requires that the family be notified of the results
of the examination; and it states that an individual cannot be held for
more than three days. Nevertheless, considerable potential for abuse exists,
as the experience of the Russian scientist Zhores A. Medvedev indicates.
Medvedev is a talented biologist whose interests run from gerontology (the
science of aging), to the sociology and history of science. One of his manuscripts
was confiscated by the Soviet secret police during a search of a colleague's apartment.
There was nothing illegal about the manuscript, but it had been found amid
a group of "samizdat," or underground publications. Medvedev, moreover, was
known to be an outspoken scientist, who had been in "trouble" before. In fact, he
had been unemployed for more than a year, having been relieved of his post in the
Institute of Medical Radiology.
Medvedev was first tricked into a psychiatric interview, which was conducted
under the guise of discussing his son. Subsequently, two psychiatrists, as well as
several police, arrived at his home. Medvedev was interviewed under quite
strained conditions and then forcibly removed to the local psychiatric hospital.
He was seen subsequently by several other psychiatrists. He must have appeared
generally quite robust to them, for the best they could say was that he had a "psychopathic
personality" (the Soviet term for neurotic), "an exaggerated opinion of
himself" and that he was "poorly adapted to his social environment." They noted
that his writing in recent years was weaker than his earlier work, and observed as a
further symptom that Medvedev had shown" 'excessively scrupulous' attention
to detail in his general writings" (Medvedev and Medvedev, 1971).
Medvedev was held for nineteen days, a relatively brief period for these proceedings,
and then released. Pyotr Grigorenko suffered a worse fate. Grigorenko
was a distinguished general who had served in the Red Army for thirty-five years.
At the age of fifty-four, he began to question the policies of the Communist Party
ofwhich he was a member. Ultimately, he was remanded for psychiatric examination
at Moscow's Serbsky Institute, where his diagnosis read, "Paranoid development
of the personality, with reformist ideas arising in the personality, with
psychopathic features of the character and the presence of symptoms of arteriosclerosis
ofthe brain." Shortly thereafter, he underwent an examination by a second
group of psychiatrists who found him admirably sane and vigorous. But a
third commission overruled the second. Grigorenko spent six years in three of the
most difficult Soviet "psycho-prisons" before he was permitted to emigrate to the
United States. (Fireside, 1979)
While some of the psychiatrists who examined Medvedev and Grigorenko
may well have subverted scientific knowledge to political expediency,
many probably did not. Rather, they were well-known and highly regarded one symptom
of their "illness"-and not, by any means, the only one-was their unconventionality,
which consisted in their open questioning and occasional defiance of the "system."
Psychiatric diagnosis and subsequent involuntary hospitalization have been
used to stifle political dissent. Particularly during the past decade, it has been
revealed that such political psychiatry is heavily relied upon in the Soviet
Union. At least 210 cases of sane people who were interned in Soviet
prison-hospitals for political reasons have been reported (Block and Reddaway,
1977). Others claim even higher figures (see Podrabenek, in Fireside,
1979).
How is this done? And how especially in the Soviet Union, where the legal
safeguards against abuse of involuntary commitment procedures are clearly
stronger than they are in many other countries? The Soviet code, for example,
allows the individual's family to nominate one or more psychiatrists to
the examining commission; it requires that the family be notified of the results
of the examination; and it states that an individual cannot be held for
more than three days. Nevertheless, considerable potential for abuse exists,
as the experience of the Russian scientist Zhores A. Medvedev indicates.
Medvedev is a talented biologist whose interests run from gerontology (the
science of aging), to the sociology and history of science. One of his manuscripts
was confiscated by the Soviet secret police during a search of a colleague's apartment.
There was nothing illegal about the manuscript, but it had been found amid
a group of "samizdat," or underground publications. Medvedev, moreover, was
known to be an outspoken scientist, who had been in "trouble" before. In fact, he
had been unemployed for more than a year, having been relieved of his post in the
Institute of Medical Radiology.
Medvedev was first tricked into a psychiatric interview, which was conducted
under the guise of discussing his son. Subsequently, two psychiatrists, as well as
several police, arrived at his home. Medvedev was interviewed under quite
strained conditions and then forcibly removed to the local psychiatric hospital.
He was seen subsequently by several other psychiatrists. He must have appeared
generally quite robust to them, for the best they could say was that he had a "psychopathic
personality" (the Soviet term for neurotic), "an exaggerated opinion of
himself" and that he was "poorly adapted to his social environment." They noted
that his writing in recent years was weaker than his earlier work, and observed as a
further symptom that Medvedev had shown" 'excessively scrupulous' attention
to detail in his general writings" (Medvedev and Medvedev, 1971).
Medvedev was held for nineteen days, a relatively brief period for these proceedings,
and then released. Pyotr Grigorenko suffered a worse fate. Grigorenko
was a distinguished general who had served in the Red Army for thirty-five years.
At the age of fifty-four, he began to question the policies of the Communist Party
ofwhich he was a member. Ultimately, he was remanded for psychiatric examination
at Moscow's Serbsky Institute, where his diagnosis read, "Paranoid development
of the personality, with reformist ideas arising in the personality, with
psychopathic features of the character and the presence of symptoms of arteriosclerosis
ofthe brain." Shortly thereafter, he underwent an examination by a second
group of psychiatrists who found him admirably sane and vigorous. But a
third commission overruled the second. Grigorenko spent six years in three of the
most difficult Soviet "psycho-prisons" before he was permitted to emigrate to the
United States. (Fireside, 1979)
While some of the psychiatrists who examined Medvedev and Grigorenko
may well have subverted scientific knowledge to political expediency,
many probably did not. Rather, they were well-known and highly regarded one symptom
of their "illness"-and not, by any means, the only one-was their unconventionality,
which consisted in their open questioning and occasional defiance of the "system."