Talk:Political abuse of psychiatry

Psychiatric reprisals
There doesn't seem to be anything in Wikipedia about this subject. I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to add information about reprisals to this article, or link to a new article?

For example, there's the case of Russell Tice, who was rewarded for his whistleblowing with a psychiatric evaluation saying he was "mentally unbalanced", leading to his dismissal. Since the reprisal came from a government agency, that seems like a political abuse of psychiatry. Jeremy stalked (law 296) 05:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Political abuse of psychiatry → Punitive psychiatry — The current name is problematic both because it is subjective and limits itself to political matters when the cat contains items related to racism, classism, etc. "Punitive" may not be a perfect term either so I'm open to other ideas but I think it's much closer and it mirrors the existing Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union article. (If this move is successful, I plan on proposing to rename Category:Political abuses of psychiatry as well as Category:Victims of psychiatric repression, which is currently nominated for deletion.) RevelationDirect (talk) 05:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. An article is quite capable of presenting POV issues in a neutral way, as explained at WP:NPOV. The nominator's rationale appears to be more suited to discussion on category names than to an RM, and it appears to be confusing an article with the much tighter limits which apply to a category which is applied to individuals, where the title of the category appears without qualification or alternative perspectives. Also, the scope of this article is, at is says on the tin, alleged Political abuse of psychiatry.  Punitive psychiatry is a much much wider topic. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. The term used most frequently in the article Political abuse of psychiatry and in most sources cited in this article is political abuse of psychiatry. Psychiatrick (talk) 16:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

abuse of psychiatry
abuse of psychiatry is a red link. I wonder, if abuse of psychiatry only political? Should this article be moved there, or are we missing a broader, overview class article? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 22:44, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a latecomer to this discussion, but it's an interesting proposition. Maybe the reason there is no article Abuse of psychiatry is that it would be very difficult for us to decide what constitutes abuse. There's general agreement that the practice of locking political dissidents up in asylums is abuse, but on other matters it's less clear. I'm not sure if you've ever had the displeasure of slogging through Foucault, but he would posit that the entire profession was merely the manifestation of the bourgeoisie class punishing deviance in order to foster a more compliant workforce. Others, from Andrew Scull to Robert Whitaker, have criticized psychiatrists as opportunists, looking to increase their prestige and their incomes by converting all human suffering and idiosyncrasies into pathology to be treated and medicated away. But there are vigorous and, I think, very legitimate arguments to the contrary, and I wouldn't go so far as to classify these things as abuse.  I am surprised that there is no article criticism of psychiatry, though.  Keihatsu (talk) 09:08, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * There is a good article on anti-psychiatry. Maybe criticism of psychiatry should be an additional name for this article.  DonPMitchell (talk) 01:13, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Stand-alone article for China?
I'm interested in creating a proper article for Political abuse of psychiatry in China (there are similar article for Russia and the Soviet Union). It looks like the China section of this page is already much longer than other country sections. If the material is reorganized and updated with some more recent studies and reports, I think there would be enough to make a stand-along article. Has this idea been discussed before, or are there any thoughts? Also, would anyone be interested in contributing to such a page? Keihatsu (talk) 09:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea to create a proper article for Political abuse of psychiatry in China has not been discussed before, but I think the idea is good. The China section of this page is indeed much longer than other country sections but needs to be expanded to become a stand-alone article. I don’t have sufficient materials, studies, and reports to create the article Political abuse of psychiatry in China by myself. If you have sufficient materials, you are welcome to create it. --Psychiatrick (talk) 10:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, at present article is not long enough to split, but I have created a Political abuse of psychiatry in China redirect, which can be added to the See also lists etc in other articles. Johnfos (talk) 01:08, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * According to the annotation to the 2006 book by Robin Munro China's Psychiatric Inquisition, "on the basis of extensive archival research into several decades of China’s legal and psychiatric literature, the study concludes that the use of psychiatric custody against dissidents and other similar groups has been more widespread in China than it was in the former Soviet Union." It suggests that the article Political abuse of psychiatry in China can be much longer than the article Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Psychiatrick (talk) 03:56, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Any chance of using words that are not entirely subjective?
I see the following errors:

There are 6 uses of ″many″ that could be replaced with actual examples of whatever there are ″many″ of.

5 uses of ″long″ are used that have an official length of time that was never mentioned in the article.

″Particularly pernicious″ is in a sentence at the end of the first paragraph that contributes no information besides ″dictators are bad″.

An article about diagnoses is taken out of context to imply that all medical diagnoses are inherently a form of deliberate oppression

The use of ″monolithic″ includes nothing that illustrates what makes the state monolithic, making the scope entirely subjective.

The phrase ″abundant in history″ is used when simply listing the governments immediately following the phrase would have sufficed.

No mention is made as to the effects of the ″damaged credibility″ of psychiatry in Europe or the USSR, despite it being four sentences long.

It mentions the usage by China and the USSR, but never explains any of said usage.

″Several thousand″ is not a number. If that many children were locked up, something somewhere probably says the exact number, since even a censored government would have to make sure every single one was still there, and that would require record-keeping.

Gathering ″a large amount of literature″ means you need to provide examples of said literature. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not just something you type in and get a yes or no answer on whether something exists.

We already know it was ″a very repressive and harse regime″. The name of the page has ″abuse″ in it. *How* is it repressive and harsh?

Of course opposition was not tolerated. That's why this article exists. We came here to know *how*.

What did the percentage ″increase quite rapidly″ to? What were the connections they made? Where are any of the examples? This is kind of a thing that has been famous since before the television. Examples exist somewhere.

How is it ″institutionally ingrafted″?

How does it ″seem to″ be more widespread? Numbers exist. The number is either higher or lower. It's either more widespread or not more widespread. If it seems that way, then it is, because that's what ″widespread″ means.

If it hardly ever leaks out, then why do people know it is even a thing?

An objective Encyclopedia is not the place to decide whether something is ″strange″. Is this the page for ″Strange″. No? Then why is it here?

What made the USSR identical. The differences were listed, but it was described as identical. What was the same?

How frequent is ″frequently caught″?

This is an encyclopedia. Leave the use of the word ″unfair″ to articles that directly relate to it, like cheating in a game or the use of copyrighted materials.

What made it ″half-hearted″? Examples, please.

What showed that it ″did not seem to care″?

This is just the summary and the section for China. An encyclopedia is an objective place for objective information. We get that dictators are bad. Without any objective information about the subject, the most that can be said is that someone somewhere claimed it happened, and willingly gave no details despite having a conscious choice whether to do so. 69.119.172.116 (talk) 16:43, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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Frequent personal nonsense included in this article
I first came across this article while going through the contributions of a disruptive user quite a few years ago and have put it on my watchlist since. What I've observed is that some contributors are quite clearly psychiatric patients trying to make martyrs of themselves. I've just removed yet another such instance, where the user Raphaelrubin had added two large paragraphs about the political abuse of psychiatry in Israel, citing as evidence the psychiatric diagnosis of... Raphael Rubin. And all of that user's contributions to Wikipedia focus on this article.

This isn't the first time I've removed such garbage, and though I do keep an eye on this page, I only visit irregularly. Still, I'd recommend keeping an eye on who is adding what to the article, and how reliable the information is. The recorded use of psychiatric abuse belongs in here. Anecdotal, unsourced and dubious instances of Joe Sixpack being diagnosed with schizophrenia do not, regardless of how unjust Joe Sixpack might think it is. Akesgeroth (talk) 14:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

South Africa?
Seems to me that a section on this country, unless the article is meant to cover only current abuses (if so, why?) was a notable abuser of "psychiatry" -- iirc, in the case of Steve Biko, his brain was damaged by "medical" procedures when he was a political activist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.37.99.86 (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Dubious source on abuse by "children murderers" in Germany
The section on Germany (1990s) appears to have been inserted by a political fringe group - namely aggressive abortion critics. There is only one citation leading to the highly partisan site kindermordgegner.de, i.e. "enemies of the murder of children". The articles title is also highly partisan, claiming "Nuremberg heretic trials", thereby comparing it to religious persecution and possibly the aftermath of the Nazi era. I have found no credible source to back up the claims made on that site.

Since this page seems to be a bit of a personal playground for unpredictable self-styled psychiatric victims I have not deleted the section myself, instead giving the original author an opportunity to back the section up with credible sources.

Therefore, I suggest removal of the section, unless reputable sources are added.

This article needs to decide what it's about
It's clear that this article can't decide on what "political abuse of psychiatry" is. A lot of it is abuse that doesn't seem to have been politically motivated, and a fair chunk of it can only be called abuse by flagrantly violating NPOV. --Eldomtom2 (talk) 14:26, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Massive content on the United States added
About a month ago, an anonymous user added a large amount of content to the United States section. Though it contains citations and some relevant information, most of those citations are nonsensical (such as claiming the United States rely on an outdated model and sourcing this with a book which talks about the history of psychiatry) and a lot of the information is dubious, never mind that it seeks to accuse rather than to inform at times, which is typical of the schizophrenic users coming to this article and filling it with their delusions. I'm hesitant to just delete the whole thing, but it needs reviewing by someone knowledgeable about the topic. If it's not done within a few weeks, I'll just remove it entirely. Furthermore, this article needs to be locked. Akesgeroth (talk) 17:25, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Under the countries section, Jami-Lee Ross's admission to a psychiatric hospital is offered as an example of political abuse of psychiatry in New Zealand
The section offers no reasoning or evidence that this is an abuse of psychiatry, let alone a politically motivated abuse of psychiatry. It just states that he was admitted to a hospital for mental health reasons after his dismissal from the National party, and that the police were involved, etc.

The article used as a source details that he is being supported by his friends and has a history of mental health issues, and was written at a time where limited information was available on the matter. Further available evidence that came out at a later date provides a valid justification for his admission to hospital.

In New Zealand, it is extremely difficult to get someone involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital unless they're a verifiable danger to themselves or others. Jami-Lee Ross, after his dismissal from his former political party, sent a text to someone that made them fear for his safety, which was provided to his former party, which resulted in the police being concerned for his safety and attempting to locate him. If the police found him and he wasn't a danger to himself or others, they'd have left him alone. However, given he was instead taken to a psychiatric hospital by the police, briefly admitted, and then was bound to ongoing outpatient mental health care, this wouldn't seem to be the case. Unless there is some grand conspiracy that even Jami-Lee Ross hasn't spoken up about, it would make sense that this is the NZ mental health system functioning as intended. Not a political abuse of psychiatry.

If it is in fact such a thing, where's the evidence and why hasn't it been provided and explained here? If it is not, why is it written about in an article about the political abuse of psychiatry? If this article was about every politician that has ever been briefly admitted to a psychiatric hospital, this article would be a whole lot longer.

I don't think this should be included in this article unless someone can provide a rationale and evidence for the implication that Jami-Lee Ross experienced an abuse of psychiatry under political pretenses. As far as I'm aware, none such evidence exists. EdgeLord42098 (talk) 13:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Abuse or ideology?
It seems quite likely to me that many people truly believe that political dissidents and other non-conformists are mentally ill. For example, images of people wearing masks for COVID frequently go viral on Twitter nowadays, and one of the common refrains among people opposed to masking is that the people who are still masking are mentally ill. While some of these people are likely trolling/bullying, it seems quite likely to me that many of them truly believe that people who are still masking are mentally ill. "Liberalism is a mental disorder" is also a common refrain among the right; I think some people literally believe that it is true. It also seems likely to me that someone raised as a communist to believe that capitalism is illogical and evil might see capitalists in their midst as mentally ill.

So I guess my point is that this article seems to assume that treating dissidents as mentally ill is always a form of intentional abuse, i.e., that the "abusers" do it strictly to stifle dissent. Whereas in reality, I suspect that in highly ideological societies, quite often the ideologues truly do believe that dissidents must be mentally ill. ("Why else would they disagree with something that is so obviously true?")

If anything is known about this topic and it could be added to the article, it would be interesting/helpful. Bueller 007 (talk) 16:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Walking towards WP:FORUM territory... but sure. There's probably a fuzzy boundary between social construction of illness and abuse, and questions about what it means to for a society to "believe something" and a society to "engage in abuse". If someone really wants to make someone suffering and just happens to have a nice excuse that they don't think about too much - is that abuse? What if you have access to the scientific method and spend your time thinking about mechanisms and the philosophy of mental illness? If we want to find stuff on this topic the social construction of mental illness is probably the root to take and Drapetomania might be sufficiently "distant" from us to be a good case study. Talpedia (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Related to this... I'm interested in whether there are better groundings for psychosis / schizophrenia. The medical definitions are in terms of "believes things that aren't true" but I think what actually goes on is more like "enters into (or has entered into) a mental that interfers with belief formation". This distinction between process versus belief might be relevant. Talpedia (talk) 17:14, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
 * "non-conformists are mentally ill" When I was about 10-years-old, a teacher explained to my class that the standard to label someone a heretic and take measures against him/her was merely for said someone to hold a minority view or to be singled out from a crowd. A major factor in conformity is that non-conformists face social rejection and ostracism. Labeling the non-conformists as insane would probably not be out the question. The question is: would that lead to incarceration or not? Dimadick (talk) 10:01, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Slurs versus Expurgation
This edit removed a slur from a quote https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_abuse_of_psychiatry&diff=1163991893&oldid=1144407754. I am not sure about this decision. While I maintain that I am entitled to have opinions on all things editing related, I do not feel sufficiently informed to jump into a revert on this edit so am seeking the opinion of others.

Arguments for inclusion:


 * language is indicative of fusion of racism and psychiatry. Omitting the language hides important factual information
 * language is clear to some and obtuse to others - people will know what been removed

Argument against inclusion


 * I am no clear if the meaning of the slur has changed. It may well be that the term was not being used as a slur at a time
 * *needless* causing of offense is to be avoided.

Tal pedia 15:56, 7 July 2023 (UTC)