History of Punitive Psychiatry
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"The relationship between medicine and morality is a theme as ancient as Greek medicine. However, having become integrated into the Christian rational order, it took a form least resembling that of ancient Greece: repression, coercion, and the DUTY to seek the salvation of one's soul."
This is a quote from Michel Foucault's monumental work, "The History of Madness in the Classical Age." It is essentially a manifesto for the anti-psychiatry movement. In other words, Foucault doubted that psychiatry had any usefulness whatsoever, and he considered the concepts of mental normality and madness to be social constructs.
This is a controversial idea, but Foucault certainly had grounds for this view. He noted one very important thing: the concept of normality in human culture has constantly changed from era to era. Consequently, no norm cast in granite and derived from the physical laws of the universe simply exists. This means that when society attempts to treat what it considers madness, it inevitably limits human freedom.
Michel Foucault's book was published in Paris in 1972. And it was a very opportune moment. Because the traditional attitude toward psychiatry in Western culture was in a profound crisis. Less than a year earlier, on the other side of the world—in Mexico—the World Psychiatric Association congress was held. And it became the most controversial in its history. Why? Because it was there that specialists from various countries first raised the issue of the inhumane treatment practices of the USSR. People were diagnosed with "sluggish schizophrenia" and sent to special hospitals, which in their structure differed little from prisons. The minimum number of victims of this controversial medical treatment is estimated at approximately 2,000.
This seemed excessive even to those respected doctors who had such hilarious practices as electroshock and lobotomy under their belt. In short, heated discussions ensued, culminating in the expulsion of the USSR from the World Psychiatric Association.
This whole story of sluggish schizophrenia has largely determined the current state of psychiatric care. Because it most clearly illustrated Foucault's thesis about the subtlety of the line between normality and abnormality.
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REFERENCES:
Bloch S., Reddaway P. Diagnosis: Dissent
Bukovsky V. And the Wind Returns
Garrabet J. History of Schizophrenia
Grigorenko P. Thoughts of a Madman
Johnston, F. Schizophrenia. A Brief Introduction.
Korotenko, A., Alikina, N. Soviet Psychiatry. Delusions and Intent.
Medvedev, R., Medvedev, J. Who is Mad?
Foucault, M. History of Madness in the Classical Era.
Foucault, M. Mental Illness and Personality.
Heath-Kelly, C. Cold War Psychiatry, Extremism, and Expertise: The “Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry.”
van Voren, R. On Dissidents and Madness: From the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev to the 'Soviet Union' of Vladimir Putin.
Walker, C.S. Madness, Dissidence, and Transduction.