View source for Political abuse of psychiatry

{{Short description|Misuse of psychiatry to obstruct human rights}}
{{Involuntary treatment sidebar}}
'''Political abuse of psychiatry''', also known as '''punitive psychiatry''', refers to the misuse of [[psychiatry|psychiatric]] diagnosis, detention, and treatment to suppress individual or group [[human rights]] in society.<ref name="van Voren 2010">{{cite journal|last=van Voren|first=Robert|title=Political Abuse of Psychiatry—An Historical Overview|journal=[[Schizophrenia Bulletin]] |date=January 2010|volume=36|issue=1|pages=33–35|pmid=19892821 |pmc=2800147|doi=10.1093/schbul/sbp119}}</ref><ref name="Helmchen">{{cite book |last1=Helmchen|first1=Hanfried |last2=Sartorius|first2=Norman|author-link2=Norman Sartorius|title=Ethics in Psychiatry: European Contributions |year=2010|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-90-481-8720-1|pages=491|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70h31egRm40C&pg=PA491}}</ref>{{rp|491}} This abuse involves the deliberate psychiatric diagnosis of individuals who require neither psychiatric restraint nor treatment, often for political purposes.<ref name="Глузман, 2010">{{cite journal|last=Глузман|first=Семён |script-title=ru:Этиология злоупотреблений в психиатрии: попытка мультидисциплинарного анализа |journal=Нейроnews: Психоневрология и нейропсихиатрия |date=January 2010|issue=20 |url=http://neuronews.com.ua/page/etiologiya-zloupotreblenij-v-psihiatrii-popytka-multidisciplinarnogo-analiza|language=ru |access-date=2014-01-02|archive-date=2015-11-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117022255/http://neuronews.com.ua/page/etiologiya-zloupotreblenij-v-psihiatrii-popytka-multidisciplinarnogo-analiza|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Psychiatrists have been implicated in human rights abuses worldwide, particularly in states where diagnostic criteria for mental illness are expanded to include political disobedience.<ref name="Semple">{{cite book|last1=Semple|first1=David|last2=Smyth|first2=Roger |last3=Burns |first3=Jonathan|title=Oxford handbook of psychiatry|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-852783-1|pages=6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1MeRuoTs0loC&pg=PA6}}</ref>{{rp|6}} Scholars have long observed that government and medical institutions tend to label threats to authority as mentally ill during periods of political unrest.<ref name="Metzl">{{cite book|last=Metzl |first=Jonathan|title=The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease|year=2010|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=978-0-8070-8592-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1Bg9QEiCAMC&pg=PA14}}</ref>{{rp|14}} In many countries, political prisoners are confined and abused in [[psychiatric hospital]]s.<ref name="Noll">{{cite book|last=Noll|first=Richard|title=The encyclopedia of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders|year=2007 |publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-0-8160-6405-2|pages=3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jzoJxps189IC&pg=PA3}}</ref>{{rp|3}}<ref name="Bonnie">{{cite journal|last=Bonnie|first=Richard|title=Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union and in China: Complexities and Controversies|journal=Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law|year=2002|volume=30 |issue=1|pages=136–144|pmid=11931362 |url=http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/136.pdf|access-date=12 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928174809/http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/136.pdf|archive-date=28 September 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Psychiatry is uniquely vulnerable to being used for abusive purposes compared to other specialties of [[medicine]].<ref name="Medicine betrayed">{{cite book|author=British Medical Association|author-link=British Medical Association|title=Medicine betrayed: the participation of doctors in human rights abuses|year=1992|publisher=Zed Books|isbn=978-1-85649-104-4|pages=65|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bMTu_oIfVsIC&pg=PA65}}</ref>{{rp|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.<ref name="Medicine betrayed" />{{rp|65}} This can be exploited to circumvent standard legal procedures for determining guilt or innocence, effectively incarcerating political dissidents while avoiding public scrutiny.<ref name="Medicine betrayed" />{{rp|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.<ref name="Veenhoven">{{cite book|last1=Veenhoven|first1=Willem |last2=Ewing|first2=Winifred|last3=Samenlevingen|first3=Stichting|title=Case studies on human rights and fundamental freedoms: a world survey |year=1975|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|isbn=978-90-247-1780-4|pages= 29 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdazE7TGYjgC&pg=PA29}}</ref>{{rp|29}} This allows authorities to avoid open trials when deemed undesirable.<ref name="Veenhoven" />{{rp|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".<ref name="USS1984" /><ref name="Shah">{{cite journal|last1=Shah|first1=Ruchita|last2=Basu |first2=Debasish|title=Coercion in psychiatric care: Global and Indian perspective|journal=[[Indian Journal of Psychiatry]]|date=July–September 2010|volume=52|issue=3|pages=203–206|doi=10.4103/0019-5545.70971 |pmid=21180403|pmc=2990818 |doi-access=free }}</ref> 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 Europe]]an countries like [[Communist Romania|Romania]], [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]], [[Czechoslovakia]], and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]].<ref name="Stan2013" /><ref name="Medicine betrayed" />{{rp|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.<ref name="USS1984" /><ref name="Declan">{{cite journal|last1=Declan|first1=Lyons |last2=Art|first2=O'Malley |title=The labelling of dissent&nbsp;— politics and psychiatry behind the Great Wall|journal=The Psychiatrist |year=2002|pages=443–444 |doi=10.1192/pb.26.12.443|volume=26|issue=12|doi-access=free}}</ref> Similar abuses have been reported in the [[People's Republic of China]].<ref name="van Voren 2010" /> Psychiatric diagnoses, such as "[[sluggish schizophrenia]]" in the USSR, were specifically developed and used for political purposes.<ref name="Katona">{{cite book|last1=Katona |first1=Cornelius|last2=Robertson |first2=Mary|title=Psychiatry at a glance|year=2005|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=978-1-4051-2404-1|pages=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OSJRHpAtqPUC&pg=PA77}}</ref>{{rp|77}} In the [[United States]], psychiatry was used to [[Drapetomania|control African-American slaves]], a practice that some argue continues to this day.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Metzl |first=Jonathan Michel |title=The protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease |date=2011 |publisher=Beacon |isbn=978-0-8070-0127-1 |location=Boston, Mass}}</ref>
== By country==
=== Canada ===
The [[Duplessis Orphans]] were several thousand orphaned children that were falsely certified as mentally ill by the government of the province of [[Quebec]], [[Canada]], and confined to psychiatric institutions.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}
[[Donald Ewen Cameron]]'s operation was running from what is today known as the [[Allen Memorial Institute]] (AMI), part of the [[Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal|Royal Victoria Hospital]], and not to be confused with the non-governmental organization based in Montreal, AMI-Québec Agir contre la maladie mentale.
=== China ===
In 2002, [[Human Rights Watch]] published the book ''Dangerous Minds: Political Psychiatry in China Today and its Origins in the Mao Era'' written by [[Robin Munro]] and based on the documents obtained by him.<ref name="Munro">{{cite book|last=Munro|first=Robin|title=Dangerous minds: political psychiatry in China today and its origins in the Mao era|year=2002|publisher=Human Rights Watch|isbn=978-1-56432-278-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ek8BtI3moPMC}} (Google Books)</ref><ref name="Munro HTML">{{cite book|last=Munro|first=Robin |title=Dangerous Minds: Political Psychiatry in China Today and its Origins in the Mao Era|year=2002|publisher=Human Rights Watch|isbn=978-1-56432-278-4|url=http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3deb868a1.html}} (HTML)</ref> The British researcher Robin Munro, a [[sinology|sinologist]] who was writing his dissertation in London after a long sojourn in China, had traveled to China several times to survey libraries in provincial towns and while he was there, he had gathered a large amount of literature which bore the stamp 'secret' but at the same time, it was openly available.<ref name="van Voren 2009">{{cite book|last=van Voren|first=Robert|title=On Dissidents and Madness: From the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev to the "Soviet Union" of Vladimir Putin|year=2009|publisher=Rodopi|location=Amsterdam—New York|isbn=978-90-420-2585-1|pages=242 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tyDIKu8XsgcC&pg=PA242}}</ref>{{rp|242}} This literature even included historical analyses which were published during the [[Cultural Revolution]] and it concerned articles and reports on the number of people who were taken to mental hospitals because they complained about a series of issues.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|242}} It was found, according to Munro, that the involuntary confinement of religious groups, political dissidents, and whistleblowers had a long history in China.<ref name="Freedman">{{cite journal |last=Freedman|first=M|title=Dangerous Minds: Political Psychiatry in China Today and Its Origin in the Mao Era|journal=Psychiatric Services |date=October 2003|volume=54|pages=1418–1419|url=http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/54/10/1418-a|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070524223934/http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/54/10/1418-a|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-05-24|access-date=10 December 2010|issue=10|doi=10.1176/appi.ps.54.10.1418-a}}</ref> The abuses began in the 1950s and 1960s, and they became extremely widespread throughout the Cultural Revolution.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|242}} During the period of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, the political abuse of psychiatry reached its apogee in China, which was then under the rule of [[Mao Zedong]] and the [[Gang of Four]], who established a very repressive and harsh regime.<ref name="Freedman"/> No deviance or opposition was tolerated, either in thought or in practice.<ref name="Freedman"/>
The documents described the massive abuses of psychiatry that were committed for political purposes during the rule of Mao Zedong, when millions of people were declared mentally sick.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|242}} In the 1980s, according to official documents,  fifteen percent of all forensic psychiatric cases had political connotations.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|242}} In the early 1990s, the number of such cases had dropped to five percent, but with the beginning of the campaign against [[Falun Gong]], the percentage of such cases increased quite rapidly.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|242}}
Official Chinese psychiatric literature distinctly testifies that the [[Chinese Communist Party|Communist Party]]'s notion of 'political dangerousness' was institutionally engrafted as the main concept in the diagnostic armory of China's psychiatry for a long time and its most important tool for suppressing opposition was the concept of psychiatric dangerousness.<ref name="Munro"/>{{rp|4}}
Despite international criticism, China seems to be continuing its political abuse of psychiatry.<ref name="van Voren 2010"/> Political abuse of psychiatry in China is high on the agenda and it has produced recurring disputes in the international psychiatric community.<ref name="van Voren 2010"/> The abuses there appear to be even more widespread than they were in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s and they involve the incarceration of 'petitioners', human rights workers, trade union activists, members of the Falun Gong movement, and people who complain about injustices that have been committed against them by local authorities.<ref name="van Voren 2010"/>
It also seems that, China had no known high security forensic institutions until 1989.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} However, since then, the Chinese authorities have constructed an entire network of special forensic mental hospitals which are called ''[[Ankang (asylums)|Ankang]]'' which means 'Peace and Health' in Chinese.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} By that time, China had 20 Ankang institutions and their staff was employed by the [[Ministry of State Security (China)|Ministry of State Security]] (MSS).<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} The psychiatrists who worked there wore uniforms under their white coats.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}}
The political abuse of psychiatry in China only seems to take place in the institutions which are under the authority of the police and the MSS but it does not take place in those institutions which belong to other governmental sectors.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} Psychiatric care in China falls into four sectors which are hardly connected with each other.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} These are the ''Ankang'' institutions of the MSS; those which belong to the police; those which fall under the authority of the Ministry of Social Affairs; those which belong to the [[National Health Commission|Ministry of Health]].<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} The sectors which belong to the police and the MSS are all closed to the public, and, consequently, information about them hardly ever leaks out.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} In the hospitals which belong to the Ministry of Health, psychiatrists do not have any contact with the ''Ankang'' institutions, and they have no idea of what occurred there, which means they can sincerely state that they were not informed about the political abuse of psychiatry in China.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}}
In China, the structure of forensic psychiatry was to a great extent identical to that which existed in the Soviet Union.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} On its own, it is not so strange, since psychiatrists from the [[Moscow Serbsky Institute]] visited [[Beijing]] in 1957 in order to help their Chinese 'brethren', the same psychiatrists who promoted the system of political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|243}} As a consequence, diagnostics in China were not much different than those which were made in the Soviet Union.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|244}} The only difference was that the Soviet Union preferred "[[sluggish schizophrenia]]" as a diagnosis, and that China generally cleaved to the diagnosis of "[[paranoia]]" or "[[paranoid schizophrenia]]".<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|244}} However, the results were the same: long hospitalizations in mental hospitals, involuntary treatments with [[neuroleptics]], [[torture]], abuse, all of which were aimed at breaking the victim's will.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|244}}
In accordance with Chinese law which contains the concept of "political harm to society" and the similar  phrase  dangerous mentally ill behavior, police take "political maniacs into mental hospitals, those who are defined as persons who write reactionary letters, make anti-government speeches, or "express opinions on important domestic and international affairs".<ref name=NYT>{{cite news|title=Contortions of Psychiatry in China|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/opinion/contortions-of-psychiatry-in-china.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm|access-date=6 April 2012|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=25 March 2001}}</ref> Psychiatrists are frequently caught involved in such cases, unable and unwilling to challenge the police, according to psychiatry professor at the [[Peking University]] Yu Xin.<ref name=Demick>{{cite news|last=Demick|first=Barbara|title=China poised to limit use of mental hospitals to curb dissent|url=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-psychiatric-20120317,0,1464909,print.story|access-date=6 April 2012|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=16 March 2012|archive-date=19 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120319094426/http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-psychiatric-20120317,0,1464909,print.story|url-status=dead}}</ref> As Liu's database suggests, today's most frequent victims of psychiatric abuse are political dissidents, petitioners, and Falun Gong members.<ref name="LaFraniere">{{cite news|last1=LaFraniere|first1=Sharon|last2=Levin|first2=Dan|title=Assertive Chinese Held in Mental Wards|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/asia/12psych.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print|access-date=22 March 2012|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=11 November 2010}}</ref> In the beginning of the 2000s, Human Rights Watch accused China of locking up Falun Gong members and dissidents in a number of Chinese mental hospitals managed by the [[Public security bureau (China)|Public Security Bureau]].<ref name="LaFraniere"/> Access to the hospitals was requested by the [[World Psychiatric Association]] (WPA), but denied by China, and the controversy subsided.<ref name="LaFraniere"/>
The WPA attempted to confine the problem by presenting it as Falung Gong issue and, at the same time, make the impression that the members of the movement were likely not mentally sound, that it was a sect which likely brainwashed its members, etc.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|245}} There was even a diagnosis of 'qigong syndrome' which was used reflecting on the exercises practiced by Falung Gong.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|245}} It was the unfair game aiming to avoid the political abuse of psychiatry from dominating the WPA agenda.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|245}}
In August 2002, the General Assembly was to take place during the next WPA World Congress in [[Yokohama]].<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|247}} The issue of Chinese political abuse of psychiatry had been placed as one of the final items on the agenda of the General Assembly.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|251}} When the issue was broached during the General Assembly, the exact nature of compromise came to light.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|252}} In order to investigate the political abuse of psychiatry, the WPA would send an investigative mission to China.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|252}} The visit was projected for the spring of 2003 in order to assure that one could present a report during the annual meeting of the British [[Royal College of Psychiatrists]] in June/July of that year and the Annual Meeting of the [[American Psychiatric Association]] in May of the same year.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|252}} After the 2002 World Congress, the WPA Executive Committee's half-hearted attitude in Yokohama came to light: it was an omen of a longstanding policy of diversion and postponement.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|252}} The 2003 investigative mission never took place, and when finally a visit to China did take place, this visit was more of scientific exchange.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|252}} In the meantime, the political abuse of psychiatry persisted unabatedly, nevertheless the WPA did not seem to care.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|252}}
In August 2022, [[Safeguard Defenders]] issued an 85-page report on forced hospitalization in psychiatric hospitals between 2015 and 2021.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=August 2022 |title=Drugged and Detained: China's Psychiatric Prisons |url=https://safeguarddefenders.com/sites/default/files/pdf/DRUGGED%20AND%20DETAINED%20EN%20UPDATED.pdf |access-date=December 4, 2023 |website=safeguarddefenders.com}}</ref> Based on information from 144 cases, the report identifies 109 hospitals from 21 provinces in China, and documents repeated hospitalization of up to more than five times for victims. Some have spent around ten or more years inside.<ref name=":1" /> According to the report, victims are mostly [[Petitioning (China)|petitioners]] and [[List of Chinese dissidents|activists]].<ref name=":1" />
=== Cuba ===
{{See also|Political abuse of psychiatry in Cuba}}
Although Cuba has been politically connected to the Soviet Union since the United States broke off relations with Cuba shortly after [[Fidel Castro]] came to power in 1959, few considerable allegations regarding the political abuse of psychiatry in this country emerged before the late 1980s.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|74}} [[Americas Watch]] and [[Amnesty International]] published reports alluding to cases of possible unwarranted hospitalization and ill-treatment of political prisoners.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}} These reports concerned the Gustavo Machin hospital in [[Santiago de Cuba]] in the southeast of the country and the major mental hospital in [[Havana]].<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}} In 1977, a report on alleged abuse of psychiatry in Cuba presenting cases of ill-treatment in mental hospitals going back to the 1970s came out in the United States.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}} It presents grave allegations that prisoners end up in the forensic ward of mental hospitals in Santiago de Cuba and Havana where they undergo ill-treatment including [[electroconvulsive therapy]] without [[muscle relaxants]] or [[anaesthesia]].<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}} The reported application of ECT in the forensic wards seems, at least in many of the cited cases, not to be an adequate clinical treatment for the diagnosed state of the prisoner—in some cases the prisoners seem not to have been diagnosed at all.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}} Conditions in the forensic wards have been described in repulsive terms and apparently are in striking contrast to the other parts of the mental hospitals that are said to be well-kept and modern.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}}
In August 1981, the Marxist historian Ariel Hidalgo was apprehended and accused of 'incitement against the social order, international solidarity and the Socialist State' and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|75}} In September 1981, he was transported from State Security Headquarters to the Carbó-Serviá (forensic) ward of Havana Psychiatric Hospital where he stayed for several weeks.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|76}}
=== Germany ===
{{main|Action T4}}
By 1936, killing of the "physically and socially unfit" became accepted practice in [[Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{cite journal|author= Holder, Elizabeth|title= The abuse of psychiatry for political purposes|journal= Journal of Child Psychotherapy|date= 1977|volume= 4|issue=3|pages= 108–110|doi= 10.1080/00754177708254978}}</ref> In the 1940s, the abuse of psychiatry involved the abuse of the "duty to care" on an enormous scale: 300,000 individuals were [[Compulsory sterilization|involuntarily sterilized]] and 77,000 murdered in Germany alone and many thousands further afield, mainly in [[eastern Europe]].<ref name="Birley">{{Cite journal | last1 = Birley | first1 = J. L. T. | title = Political abuse of psychiatry | doi = 10.1111/j.0902-4441.2000.007s020[dash]3.x | journal = [[Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica]] | volume = 101 | issue = 399 | pages = 13–15 | date=January 2000 | pmid = 10794019}}</ref> Psychiatrists were instrumental in establishing a system of identifying, notifying, transporting, and killing hundreds of thousands of "racially and cognitively compromised" persons and the mentally ill in settings that ranged from centralized mental-hospitals to jails and [[Extermination camp|death camps]].<ref name=Strous>{{cite journal|last= Strous|first= Rael|title= Psychiatry during the Nazi era: ethical lessons for the modern professional|journal= [[Annals of General Psychiatry]]|date= February 2007|volume= 6|pages= 8|doi= 10.1186/1744-859X-6-8|pmid= 17326822|pmc= 1828151|issue= 1|doi-access= free}}</ref> Psychiatrists played a central and prominent role in [[Sterilization (medicine)|sterilization]] and '[[euthanasia]]', constituting two categories of the [[crimes against humanity]].<ref name=Strous/> The taking of thousands of brains from 'euthanasia' victims demonstrated the way medical research was connected to the psychiatric killings.<ref name="Weindling">{{cite book |last=Weindling |first=Paul Julian |title=Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent |year=2006 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0-230-50700-5 |pages=6}}</ref> Germany operated six psychiatric extermination centers: [[Bernburg Killing Facility|Bernburg]], [[Brandenburg Killing Facility|Brandenburg]], [[Grafeneck Killing Facility|Grafeneck]], [[Hadamar Killing Facility|Hadamar]], [[Hartheim Killing Facility|Hartheim]], and [[Sonnenstein Killing Facility|Sonnenstein]].<ref name=Breggin>{{cite journal |last=Breggin |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Breggin |title=Psychiatry's role in the holocaust |journal=International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine |pmid =23511221 |doi =10.3233/JRS-1993-4204 |year=1993 |volume=4 |issue=2 | pages=133–148 | url=http://www.waynemorinjr.com/Germany%20Psychiatry%20Murder%20of%20Mental%20Patients.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906230228/http://www.waynemorinjr.com/Germany%20Psychiatry%20Murder%20of%20Mental%20Patients.pdf |archive-date=September 6, 2013}}</ref><ref name=Torrey>{{cite journal |last1=Fuller Torrey |first1=Edwin |author-link1=Edwin Fuller Torrey |last2=Yolken |first2=Robert |title=Psychiatric Genocide: Nazi Attempts to Eradicate Schizophrenia |journal=[[Schizophrenia Bulletin]]|date=January 2010 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=26–32 |doi=10.1093/schbul/sbp097 |pmid=19759092 |pmc=2800142}}</ref> They played a crucial role in developments leading to the [[Holocaust]].<ref name=Breggin/>
=== India ===
It was reported in June, 2012, that the [[Indian Government]] has approached [[NIMHANS]], a well known mental health establishment in [[South India]], to assist in suppressing anti-nuclear protests regards to building of the [[Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant]]. The government was in talks with NIMHANS representatives to chalk up a plan to dispatch psychiatrists to [[Kudankulam]], for counselling protesters opposed to the building of the plant. To fulfill this, [[NIMHANS]] developed a team of six members, all of them, from the Department of Social Psychiatry. The psychiatrists were sent to get a "peek into the protesters' minds" and help them learn the importance of the plant according to one news source.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/article525233.ece|title=Centre to deal anti-nuke mind-set with NIMHANS|work=The New Indian Express|access-date=20 February 2016|date=2 June 2012|author=Veena Joshi Datta}}{{dead link|date=February 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/No-margin-for-error/Article1-865997.aspx|title=No margin for error|work=Hindustantimes.com|access-date=15 June 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141107075059/http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/ColumnsOthers/No-margin-for-error/Article1-865997.aspx|archive-date=7 November 2014|url-status=dead|author=Praful Bidwai|date=4 June 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=238299|title=Demonising anti-nuclear protests|access-date=15 June 2015|work=The Daily Star|author=Praful Bidwai|date=15 June 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://newindianexpress.com/nation/article546418.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120706041634/http://newindianexpress.com/nation/article546418.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 6, 2012|title=Koodankulam counselling for protestors flayed|work=The New Indian Express|access-date=15 June 2015|author=Veena Joshi Datta|date=20 June 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/article546439.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120622075803/http://newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/article546439.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 22, 2012|title=Plan to counsel anti-nuclear protesters draws flak|work=The New Indian Express|access-date=15 June 2015|author=Veena Joshi Datta|date=20 June 2012}}</ref>
In July, 2013, the same institution, [[NIMHANS]], was involved in a controversy where it was alleged that it provided assistance to the [[Central Bureau of Investigation]] relating to some interrogation techniques.
=== Japan ===
Japanese psychiatric hospitals during the country's imperial era reported an abnormally large number of patient deaths, peaking in 1945 after the surrender of Japan to Allied forces.<ref name="Totsuka">{{cite journal|last=Totsuka|first=Etsuro|title=The history of Japanese psychiatry and the rights of mental patients|journal=The Psychiatrist|year=1990|volume=14|issue=4|pages=193–200|doi=10.1192/pb.14.4.193|doi-access=free}}</ref> The patients of these institutions were mistreated mainly because they were considered a hindrance to society. Under the Imperial Japanese government, citizens were expected to contribute in one way or another to the war effort, and the mentally ill were unable to do so, and as such were looked down upon and abused. The main cause of death for these patients was starvation, as caretakers did not supply the patients with adequate food, likely as a form of torture and a method of sedation.{{Citation needed|date = August 2015}} Because mentally ill patients were kept secluded from the outside world, the large number of deaths went unnoticed by the general public. After the end of Allied occupation, the [[Diet of Japan|National Diet of Japan]] passed the {{nihongo|Mental Hygiene Act|精神衛生法,|Seishin Eisei Hō}} in 1950, which improved the status of the mentally ill and prohibited the domestic containment of mental patients in medical institutions. However, the Mental Hygiene Act had [[unforeseen consequence]]s. Along with many other reforms, the law prevented the mentally ill from being charged with any sort of crime in Japanese courts. Anyone who was found to be mentally unstable by a qualified psychiatrist was required to be hospitalized rather than incarcerated, regardless of the severity of any crime that person may have committed. The Ministry of Justice tried several times to amend the law, but was met with opposition from those who believed the legal system should not interfere with medical science.<ref name="Totsuka"/> After almost four decades, the {{nihongo|Mental Health Act|精神保健法,|Seishin Hoken Hō}} was finally passed in 1987. The new law corrected the flaws of the Mental Hygiene Act by allowing the Ministry of Health and Welfare to set regulations on the treatment of mental patients in both medical and legal settings. With the new law, the mentally ill have the right to voluntary hospitalization, the ability to be charged with a crime, and right to use the insanity defense in court, and the right to pursue legal action in the event of abuse or negligence on the part of medical professionals.
=== Norway ===
There have been a few accusations about abuse of psychiatry in Norway.  See [[Arnold Juklerød]] and [[Knut Hamsun]].
=== Romania ===
{{Further|Pitești Prison|Anti-religious campaign of Communist Romania}}
In Romania, there have been allegations of some particular cases of psychiatric abuse during over a decade.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|73}} In addition to particular cases, there is evidence that mental hospitals were utilized as short-term detainment centers.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|73}} For instance, before the 1982 [[Universiade|International University Sports 'Olympiad']], over 600 dissidents were detained and kept out of public view in mental hospitals.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|73}} Like in the [[Soviet Union]], on the eve of Communist holidays, potential "troublemakers" were sent to mental hospitals by busloads and discharged when the holidays had passed.<ref name="van Voren 2010"/>
The People's Republic of Romania held to a doctrine of [[state atheism]].<ref name="Stan2013">{{cite book |last1=Stan |first1=Lavinia |title=Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02053-5 |language=en}}</ref> Many Christians, including those from the Baptist Church and [[Army of the Lord|Lord's Army]] wing of the Orthodox Church, were forced into psychiatric hospitals where they died.<ref name="Trade1978">{{cite book |author=United States Congress House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade |title=Emigration Waiver to the Socialist Republic of Romania and the Hungarian People's Republic and Nondiscriminatory Treatment of the Products of Romania: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Trade of the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, Ninety-fifth Congress, Second Session - June 15, 1978 |date=1978 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=335 |language=en |quote=Another particularly repulsive Soviet practice is used in Romania against Christian believers: that of incarceration in mental hospitals. Father D'mitrie Zaminiscu, who had organized "unofficial" religious groups, was thus held; he got out of the hospital-prison early in 1974, but died shortly afterwards. Another priest, Father Ioan Bohoc, was similarly sentenced, and his mind genuinely gave way while he was shut up in the mental hospital. A Christian nun, Lidia Ababei, was also incarcerated in such a place, but released after a campaign of protest outside Romania, including a BBC programme which mentioned her case. Others, including Miss Genoveva Sfatcu, who is the conductor of the children's choir of the Baptist Church in Iasi, have been threatened with detention in mental hospitals. And harassment of those who wish to follow and teach Christianity is unrelenting; an Orthodox community called the Lord's Army, for instance, of an evangelical persuasion, remains altogether illegal, and its leaders, clerical and lay, are under continuous police surveillance. (One of them, Trajan Dors, was imprisoned for 17 years; released from prison in 1964, he has been confined to his village ever since; although now old and ill, he was not allowed to accept an invitation to go to Germany for treatment. His home is regularly raided and his writings--he produces hymns, poetry and Biblical commentaries--as regularly stolen.)}}</ref>
=== Russia ===
{{main|Political abuse of psychiatry in Russia}}
Reports on particular cases continue to come from Russia where the worsening political climate appears to create an atmosphere in which local authorities feel able, once again to use psychiatry as a means of intimidation.<ref name="van Voren 2010"/>
=== Soviet Union ===
{{main|Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union}}
{{Further|Soviet anti-religious legislation|Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union}}
In 1971 detailed reports about the inmates of Soviet psychiatric hospitals who had been detained for political reasons began to reach the West.<ref>[https://chronicle6883.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/18-1-political-prisoners-in-psychiatric-hospitals-a-survey-of-documents/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' 18.1, 5 March 1971, "Political prisoners in psychiatric hospitals".]</ref> These showed that the periodic use of incarceration in psychiatric institutions during the 1960s (see the biography of [[Vladimir Bukovsky]]) had started to become a systematic way of dealing with dissent, political or religious.<ref name="Bonnie"/> In accordance with the doctrine of [[state atheism]], the USSR hospitalized individuals who were devout in their faith, such as many Baptist Christians.<ref name="USS1984">{{cite book |title=Protecting and Promoting Religious Rights in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Ninety-eighth Congress, Second Session, June 12, 1984 |date=1984 |publisher=United States Congress Senate Committee on Foreign Relations |page=30 |language=en}}</ref>
In March 1971 Vladimir Bukovsky sent detailed diagnoses of six individuals ([[Natalya Gorbanevskaya]] and [[Pyotr Grigorenko]] among them) to psychiatrists in the West.<ref>[https://chronicle6883.wordpress.com/56-65-khts-1980-1982-r/1971-e-nos-18-22/commentary-19/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' 19, 30 April 1971, Commentary No 19, Notes on "The Arrest of Vladimir Bukovsky".]</ref> They responded <ref>[https://chronicle6883.wordpress.com/2015/12/08/22-3-materials-concerning-the-forthcoming-international-congress-of-psychiatrists/ ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' 22.3, 10 December 1971, "Materials for the forthcoming international Congress of Psychiatrists".]</ref> and over the next 13 years activists inside the USSR and support groups in Britain, Europe and North America conducted a sustained campaign to expose psychiatric abuses.<ref>See Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway, ''Russia's political hospitals'', London, 1977.</ref> In 1977 the [[World Psychiatric Association]] (WPA) condemned the USSR for this practice. Six years later, the Soviet All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists seceded from the WPA rather than face almost certain expulsion.<ref name="Bonnie"/>
During this period reports of continuous repression multiplied, but Soviet psychiatric officials refused to allow international bodies to see the hospitals and patients in question. They denied the charges of abuse.<ref name="Bonnie"/> In February 1989, however, at the height of [[perestroika]] and over the opposition of the psychiatric establishment, the Soviet government permitted a delegation of psychiatrists from the United States, representing the U.S. government, to carry out extensive interviews of suspected victims of abuse.<ref name="Bonnie"/><ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|69}}
The delegation was able systematically to interview and assess present and past involuntarily admitted mental patients chosen by the visiting team, as well as to talk over procedures and methods of treatment with some of the patients, their friends, relatives and, sometimes, their treating psychiatrists.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|69}} The delegation originally sought interviews with 48 persons, but saw only 15 hospitalized and 12 discharged patients.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|69}} About half of the hospitalized patients were released in the two months between the submission of the initial list of names to the Soviet authorities and the departure from the Soviet Union of the US delegation.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|69}} The delegation concluded that nine of the 15 hospitalized patients had disorders which would be classified in the United States as serious psychoses, diagnoses corresponding broadly with those used by the Soviet psychiatrists.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|69}} One of the hospitalized patients had been diagnosed as having [[schizophrenia]] although the US team saw no evidence of mental disorder.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|70}} Among the 12 discharged patients examined, the US delegation found that nine had no evidence of any current or past mental disorder; the remaining three had comparatively slight symptoms which would not usually warrant involuntary commitment in Western countries.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|70}} According to medical records, all these patients had diagnoses of psychopathology or schizophrenia.<ref name="Medicine betrayed"/>{{rp|70}} The authorities had justified compulsory psychiatric treatment by slow and weak forms of schizophrenia – a so-called "latent schizophrenia" according to a concept of [[Eugen Bleuler]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Engmann |first=Birk |date=June 2022 |title=On the origins of the concept of 'latent schizophrenia' in Russian psychiatry |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957154X211035328 |journal=History of Psychiatry |language=en |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=230–235 |doi=10.1177/0957154X211035328 |pmid=34320852 |s2cid=236496111 |issn=0957-154X}}</ref> Such forms would allegedly make the sufferer prone to criminal acts.
Returning home after a visit of more than two weeks, the delegation members wrote a report which was highly damaging to the Soviet authorities.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|125}} The delegation established that there had been systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the past and that it had not yet come to an end. Victims continued to be held in mental hospitals, while the Soviet authorities and the Soviet Society of Psychiatrists and Neuropathologists in particular still denied that psychiatry had been employed as a method of repression.<ref name="van Voren 2009"/>{{rp|125}}
The American report and other pressures, domestic and external, led the [[Politburo]] to pass a resolution (15 November 1989) "On improvements in Soviet law concerning procedures for the treatment of psychiatric patients".<ref>
[http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/psychiat/psy-eng.html Bukovsky Archives, section 3.6, "The use of psychiatry for political purposes".]
</ref>
=== Suriname ===
[[Louis Doedel]] (1905–1980) was a trade unionist. He was [[Involuntary commitment|involuntary committed]] in psychiatric hospital {{ill|Wolfenbüttel (institution)|nl|Wolfenbüttel (instelling)|lt=Wolfenbüttel}} on 28 May 1937 by Governor [[Johannes Coenraad Kielstra|Kielstra]]. Doedel was forgotten and presumed dead. It was not until 1980, 43 years later, that he was released.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.starnieuws.com/index.php/welcome/index/nieuwsitem/14926 |title=Borstbeeld, eerste stap naar eerherstel Louis Doedel |website=Star Nieuws|access-date=20 December 2021|language=nl}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://vakbondshistorie.nl/dossiers/louis-doedel-1905-1980/ |title=Louis Doedel (1905-1980)|website=Vakbonds Historie|access-date=20 December 2021|language=nl}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/8d287566-bcbb-486b-bc26-812f740bf87e/louis-doedel |title=Louis Doedel|website=[[International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam]]|access-date=20 December 2021}}</ref>
=== Thailand ===
Following the [[2014 Thai coup d'état]], there were a few cases where the [[National Council for Peace and Order]] (NCPO, the Thai military junta) alleged its opponents, including a protesting schoolchild, Nattanan Warintawaret,<ref>{{Cite web|title=It could never happen here: Political psychiatry and Nattanan Warintawaret|url=https://prachatai.com/english/node/5361|access-date=2020-07-14|website=Prachatai English |date=31 July 2015 |language=en}}</ref> were mentally disturbed.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Sripokangkul |first1=Siwach |last2=Crumpton |first2=Charles David|last3=Draper|first3=John|date=2020-05-21|title=Demonization and violence as tools of institutional power: the social cage of Thailand|journal=Social Identities|volume=26|issue=4|pages=446–460|doi=10.1080/13504630.2020.1767056|s2cid=219502000|issn=1350-4630}}</ref> In addition, the military junta introduced a systematic process of 'attitude adjustment', whereby hundreds of dissidents were subjected to forcible detention and propaganda until they reformed their views of the junta; the majority did not and were subsequently charged with crimes. While psychiatrists were not employed, a team of psychologists was involved, implying [[psychological warfare]] rather than political psychiatry.<ref name=":0" /><sup>:453</sup> On 9 July 2020 [[Tiwagorn Withiton]], a Facebook user who went viral after posting a picture of himself wearing a t-shirt printed with the message "I lost faith in the monarchy" was forcibly detained by police officers and admitted to Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital in Khon Kaen. Tiwagorn has stated that he does not wish the [[Monarchy of Thailand|Thai monarchy]] to be abolished but 'loss of faith' may imply [[lèse-majesté]], a serious crime in Thailand.<ref>{{Cite web|last=English|first=Khaosod|date=2020-06-22|title=Man Behind Viral 'Lost Faith' Shirt Gets Cop Visit|url=https://www.khaosodenglish.com/politics/2020/06/22/man-wears-lost-faith-in-the-monarchy-shirt-gets-cop-visit/ |access-date=2020-07-14|website=Khaosod English|language=en-US}}</ref> Tiwagorn is quoted as saying, "I well understand that it is political to have to make people think I'm insane. I won't hold it against the officials if there is a diagnosis that I'm insane, because I take it that they have to follow orders."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Facebook user behind viral 'lost faith' shirt committed to psychiatric hospital |url=https://prachatai.com/english/node/8646|access-date=2020-07-14|website=Prachatai English|date=13 July 2020 |language=en}}</ref> Subsequent to protests by civil rights groups<ref>{{Cite web|last=Record|first=The Isaan|date=2020-07-18|title=Civil rights groups urge release of Khon Kaen man held at mental hospital|url=https://isaanrecord.com/2020/07/18/civil-rights-groups-urge-release-of-khon-kaen-man-held-at-mental-hospital/ |access-date=2020-07-23|website=The Isaan Record|language=en-US}}</ref> and media stories,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thai royalists must reconsider tactics in dealing with free speech|url=https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Thai-royalists-must-reconsider-tactics-in-dealing-with-free-speech |access-date=2020-07-23|website=Nikkei Asian Review|language=en-GB}}</ref> Tiwagorn was released by Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital, on July 22, 2020.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Record|first=The Isaan|date=2020-07-22|title=After court rejects petition to free dissident, he is released from mental hospital|url=https://isaanrecord.com/2020/07/22/after-court-rejects-petition-to-free-dissident-he-is-released-from-mental-hospital/ |access-date=2020-07-23|website=The Isaan Record|language=en-US}}</ref>
=== United States ===
*"[[Drapetomania]]" was a supposed [[mental illness]] described by [[United States|American]] physician [[Samuel A. Cartwright]] in 1851 that caused [[Slavery in the United States|black slaves]] to flee captivity.<ref name="White">{{cite book|last=White|first=Kevin|title=An introduction to the sociology of health and illness|year=2002|publisher=SAGE|isbn=978-0-7619-6400-1|pages=41, 42|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5bHxQBNWGHMC&pg=PA41}}</ref>{{rp|41}} In addition to inventing drapetomania, Cartwright prescribed a remedy. His feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented."<ref name=Cartwright>{{cite journal|last=Cartwright|first=Samuel A.|author-link=Samuel A. Cartwright|title=Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race|journal=[[DeBow's Review]]|year=1851|volume=XI|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html|access-date=16 November 2011}}</ref> In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause"—a warning sign of imminent flight—Cartwright prescribed "[[flagellation|whipping]] the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure".<ref name="Caplan">{{cite book|last1=Caplan|first1=Arthur|last2=McCartney|first2=James|last3=Sisti |first3=Dominic|title=Health, disease, and illness: concepts in medicine|year=2004|publisher=Georgetown University Press|isbn=978-1-58901-014-7 |pages=35|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NmHCGb3GvJoC&pg=PA35}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Slavery & the Law |author=Paul Finkelman |year=1997|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-2119-3|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1YI0DvuukxkC&pg=PA305| page=305}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Slavery and Emancipation |author1=Rick Halpern |author2=Enrico Dal Lago |year=2002|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|isbn=978-0-631-21735-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=svaQthjrcf0C&pg=RA1-PA273| page=273}}</ref> As a remedy for this disease, doctors also made running a physical impossibility by prescribing the removal of both big toes.<ref name="White"/>{{rp|42}} Cartwright also proposed "[[dysaesthesia aethiopica]]" as a mental illness that caused laziness among slaves.
*In the United States, [[political dissent]]ers have been involuntarily committed.  For example, in 1927 a [[demonstration (people)|demonstrator]] named [[Aurora D'Angelo]] was sent to a mental health facility for psychiatric evaluation after she participated in a rally in support of [[Sacco and Vanzetti]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=Temkin |last=Moshik |title=[[The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair: America on Trial]] |publisher=Yale University Press Publishers |isbn=978-0-300-12484-2 |year=2009 |page=[https://archive.org/details/saccovanzettiaff0000temk/page/316 316] }}</ref>
*When [[Clennon Washington King, Jr.|Clennon W. King, Jr.]], an African-American [[pastor]] and activist of the [[Civil Rights Movement]], attempted to enroll at the [[Racial segregation in the United States|all-white]] [[University of Mississippi]] for summer [[graduate school|graduate courses]] in 1958, the Mississippi police arrested him on the grounds that "any [Black person] who tried to enter Ole Miss ''must'' be crazy."<ref>{{Cite book|first=William H.|last=Tucker|title=The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-02762-8|year=2002 |page=119|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-jIEhfKPaYC}}</ref> Keeping King's whereabouts secret for 48 hours, the Mississippi authorities kept him confined to a mental hospital for twelve days before a panel of doctors established the activist's sanity.<ref name = "Negro Pastor Pronounced Sane">[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1798&dat=19580620&id=LgIdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4YoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7178,1936782 "Negro Pastor Pronounced Sane; Demands Mississippi Apologize".] UPI. ''[[Sarasota Journal]]'' 20 June 1958: 3.</ref>
*In the 1964 election, [[Fact (US magazine)|''Fact'' magazine]] polled [[American Psychiatric Association]] members on whether [[Barry Goldwater]] was fit to be president and published "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater." This led to the adoption of an ethical rule against diagnosis of public figures by a clinician who has not performed an examination or been authorized to release information by the patient. This became the [[Goldwater rule]].<ref name=tele>{{cite news |author=Richard A. Friedman |author-link=Richard A. Friedman |title=How a Telescopic Lens Muddles Psychiatric Insights |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/health/views/24mind.html?ref=science |newspaper=[[New York Times]] |date=May 23, 2011 |access-date=2011-05-24 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=LBJ Fit to Serve |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=D24hAAAAIBAJ&pg=882,4721408&dq=ralph+ginzburg&hl=en |quote=Publisher Ralph Ginzburg, defendant in a libel suit for an article on a poll of psychiatrists on Barry Goldwater that he conducted in 1964 says ... |newspaper=[[Associated Press]] |date=May 23, 1968 |access-date=2011-05-24 }}{{Dead link|date=July 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
*In the 1970s, [[Martha Beall Mitchell]], wife of [[United States Attorney General|U.S. Attorney General]] [[John N. Mitchell|John Mitchell]], was diagnosed with a [[paranoid]] mental disorder for claiming that the administration of President [[Richard M. Nixon]] was engaged in illegal activities. Many of her claims were later proved correct, and the term "[[Martha Mitchell effect]]" was coined to describe mental health [[misdiagnoses]] when accurate claims are dismissed as delusional.
*In 2010, the book ''[[The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease]]'' by [[psychiatrist]] [[Jonathan Metzl]] (who also has a Ph.D. in [[American studies]]) was published.<ref name="Metzl"/> The book covers the history of the 1960s [[Ionia State Hospital]] located in [[Ionia, Michigan]], and now converted to a prison and focuses on exposing the trend of this hospital to diagnose [[African American]]s with [[schizophrenia]] because of their [[civil rights]] ideas.<ref name="Metzl"/> The book suggests that in part the sudden influx of such diagnoses could be traced to a change in wording in the [[DSM-II]], which compared to the previous edition added "[[hostility]]" and "[[aggression]]" as signs of the disorder.<ref name="Metzl"/>
*[[Clinical psychologist]] [[Bruce E. Levine]], argues that [[Oppositional Defiant Disorder]], which can be easily used to pathologize [[anti-authoritarianism]], is an abuse of psychiatry.
*In 2014, ''[[The Mercury News]]'' published a series of articles detailing questionable use of [[psychotropic drugs]] within [[California's]] [[foster care]] system where bad behavior is attributed to various mental conditions, and little care is provided besides drugs. Likewise, many experts questioned the long-term effects of high dosages on developing [[brain]]s, and some former patients reported permanent [[side effects]] even after stopping the meds.<ref>{{cite web |last1=De Sá |first1=Karen |title=Drugging Our Kids |url=https://extras.mercurynews.com/druggedkids/ |website=The Mercury News |access-date=28 July 2024}}</ref>
====California====
*"[[5150 (involuntary psychiatric hold)]]" – There are many instances of usage of California law section 5150, which allows for involuntary psychiatric hold based on the opinion of a law enforcement official, psychological professional (or many other individuals who hold no qualification for making psychological assessment), which have been challenged as being unrelated to safety, and misused as an extension of political power.<ref>{{cite web|title=Silent UC Berkeley protester detained|author=J.D. Morris|url=http://www.dailycal.org/2011/12/11/silent-uc-berkeley-protester-detained-by-police/|date=13 December 2011|work=The Daily Californian}}</ref>
====New York ====
[[Whistleblower]]s who part ranks with their organizations have had their mental stability questioned, such as, for example, [[NYPD]] veteran [[Adrian Schoolcraft]] who was coerced to falsify crime statistics in his department and then became a whistleblower. In 2010 he was forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rawstory.com/2010/10/cop-nypd-psych-ward-whistleblowing/|title=Cop hauled off to psych ward after alleging fake crime stats|date=10 October 2010 |access-date=6 July 2022}}</ref>
==See also==
{{col div|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Controversies about psychiatry]]
* [[Wrongful involuntary commitment]]
* [[Involuntary commitment]]
* [[Anti-psychiatry]]
* [[Institutionalisation]]
* [[Global Initiative on Psychiatry]]
* [[Medical torture]]
** [[Pharmacological torture]]
* [[Patient abuse]]
* [[Medically indigent adult]]
* ''[[The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease]]''
* [[Unethical human experimentation]]
{{colend}}
== References ==
{{Reflist|33em}}
== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
* {{cite journal|last1=Adler|first1=Nanci|last2=Mueller|first2=Gerard|last3=Ayat|first3=Mohammed|title=Psychiatry under tyranny: a report on the political abuse of Romanian psychiatry during the Ceausescu years|journal=Current Psychology|volume=12|issue=1|pages=3–17|year=1993|pmid=11652327 |doi=10.1007/BF02737088|s2cid=39597688}}
* {{cite journal|last=van Voren|first=Robert|title=Comparing Soviet and Chinese Political Psychiatry|journal=The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law|year=2002|volume=30|issue=1|pages=131–135|pmid=11931361|url=http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/131.pdf|access-date=27 February 2011|archive-date=26 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726200722/http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/1/131.pdf|url-status=dead}}
{{Anti-psychiatry}}
{{Unnecessary health care}}{{Medical harm}}{{adopt}}
{{Religious persecution}}
[[Category:Political abuses of psychiatry| ]]
[[Category:Imprisonment and detention]]
[[Category:Institutional abuse]]
[[Category:Medical sociology]]
[[Category:Political repression]]
[[Category:Social problems in medicine]]
[[Category:Ethics in psychiatry]]
[[Category:Psychiatry controversies]]