Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse
Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse was a group that was founded by Soviet dissident Viktor Fainberg[1] in April 1975 and participated in the struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union from 1975 to 1988.[2]
Formation | April 1975 |
---|---|
Founder | Viktor Fainberg |
Dissolved | 1988 |
Type | Non-profit ngo |
Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Fields | psychiatry |
director | Viktor Fainberg |
chair | Henry Dicks |
The Campaign involved national and international medical bodies[3] to reveal the monstrous abuse of human rights through the misuse of psychiatry.[4]
Participants
The English branch was set up on 5 September 1975[5] as the British section of the Action Committee Against Abuses of Psychiatry for Political Purposes[6] and composed of psychiatrists, other doctors, and laymen[7] including David Markham, Max Gammon, William Shawcross, George Theiner, James Thackara, Tom Stoppard, Eric Avebury,[8] Helen Bamber,[9] and Vladimir Bukovsky.[10]
The chair of the organisation was British psychiatrist Henry Dicks.[11] From the fall of 1976, its director was Viktor Fainberg.[12] Committees similar to the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse were later set up in France, Germany, and Switzerland.[13]
Activities
Campaigns of the British section of the group included a rally against psychiatric abuse in July 1976 in Trafalgar Square[7] and led to the release of Vladimir Borisov, Vladimir Bukovsky and Leonid Plyushch.[2] The group issued correspondence, bulletins, and other documents which are deposited in the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.[2] The group was so effective that by the early 1980s Soviet psychiatry had pariah status.[14] Opposition in Britain including the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse led the Royal College of Psychiatrists to establish the Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry in 1978.[15] The Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse actually never said what its fallback position was, this must mean that the Campaign favoured confinement of the innocent in prisons instead of mental hospitals.[16]
References
- Makeyeva 2013; Mosby 1977; Thorne (1977a, 1977b)
- Cook 2012, p. 203.
- McCleskey 1985, p. 31.
- Janner 1977.
- Ukrainian Weekly 1976.
- Lader 1977, p. 189; McKane 2001
- New Scientist 1976.
- McKane 2001.
- Rappaport 2001, p. 46.
- Boobbyer 2009, p. 465.
- Bloch & Reddaway 1977, p. 328.
- Sakharov Hearing 1977, p. 182; Harper 1977; Heinrichs 1977
- Bukovskiĭ 1987, p. 19.
- Belton 2012, p. 270.
- Luty 2014.
- Clare 1986.
Sources
- A new campaign against the political mind-benders. New Scientist. 1 July 1976;71(1007):4.
- English Psychiatrists Speak Out for Krasivsky. The Ukrainian Weekly. 19 December 1976:2.
- Международное слушание Сахарова в Копенгагене [International Sakharov Hearing in Copenhagen]. Sakharov Hearing Committee; 1977. Russian. p. 182.
- The Good Listener: Helen Bamber: A Life Against Cruelty. Faber & Faber; 2012. ISBN 0571295274. p. 270.
- Russia's political hospitals: The abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. Victor Gollancz Ltd; 1977. ISBN 0-575-02318-X. p. 328.
- Vladimir Bukovskii and Soviet Communism. The Slavonic and East European Review. July 2009;87(3):452–487.
- To Choose Freedom. Hoover Institution Press; 1987. ISBN 0817984410. p. 19.
- Eskimo Bernard. The Listener. 6 March 1986;115:20.
- The Routledge Guide to European Political Archives: Sources since 1945. Routledge; 2012. ISBN 1136509895. p. 203.
- Where dissent may spell torture of mind and body. The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 April 1977:7.
- Tortured activist wants Russia condemned. The Age. 22 April 1977:11.
- Where dissent is branded as madness. Jewish Observer and Middle East Review. 21 July 1977;26:13.
- Psychiatry on Trial. Penguin; 1977. p. 189.
- Psychiatry and the dark side: eugenics, Nazi and Soviet psychiatry. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment. January 2014;20(1):52–60. doi:10.1192/apt.bp.112.010330.
- Dozhd. Виктор Файнберг, основатель движения борьбы с карательной психиатрией: нет ничего хуже психушки, укол – и ты чувствуешь, как из тебя вытекает разум и душа [Viktor Fainberg, the founder of the movement for the struggle against punitive psychiatry: There is nothing worse than psikhushka, after injection you feel how your reason and soul comes out of you]; 9 October 2013. Russian.
- Human rights work of scientific societies. Scientists and human rights: present and future direction. AAAS workshop report: 24 May 1984. 1985;85(19):31.
- Poems from the Arsenal. Index on Censorship. October 2001;30(4):102–106. doi:10.1080/03064220108536983.
- Jailed Soviet dissident didn't dare show fear. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. 4 February 1977:38.
- Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers. Vol. 2. ABC-CLIO; 2001. ISBN 1576071014. p. 46.
- Inside Russia's mental prisons. Lakeland Ledger. 18 January 1977:56.
- Inside Russia's mental prisons. The Times-News. 21 June 1977:11.
Further reading
- Hurst, Mark (2016). British human rights organizations and Soviet dissent, 1965–1985. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1472527288.