Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow Over World Psychiatry
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Good. Page Condition: Good. Markings: none Binding condition: Binding intact.
In one of the most chilling exposés of Cold War-era state repression, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry chronicles the systematic misuse of psychiatry as a weapon of political suppression in the Soviet Union, where dissidents were diagnosed with fabricated mental illnesses and imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals known as psikhushkas. Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway present a meticulously documented account of how the Soviet state weaponised the medical establishment to silence political opponents, intellectuals, and human rights advocates, stripping them of their dignity and freedom under the guise of clinical care. The authors argue with forensic precision that this abuse was not a fringe phenomenon but a deliberate, institutionalised policy sanctioned at the highest levels of Soviet power, casting a long shadow over the credibility of world psychiatry and international medical ethics. Drawing on firsthand testimonies, samizdat documents, and exhaustive research, Bloch and Reddaway force a reckoning with the complicity of global psychiatric organisations that looked the other way. A landmark work of political and medical history, it raises questions about the fragility of professional ethics in the face of authoritarian power that remain disturbingly relevant today.
Author: Sidney Bloch And Peter Reddaway
Format: Hardback
Published: 1984, Victor Gollancz Ltd
Genre: Politics & law
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: Good. Page Condition: Good. Markings: none Binding condition: Binding intact.
In one of the most chilling exposés of Cold War-era state repression, Soviet Psychiatric Abuse: The Shadow over World Psychiatry chronicles the systematic misuse of psychiatry as a weapon of political suppression in the Soviet Union, where dissidents were diagnosed with fabricated mental illnesses and imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals known as psikhushkas. Sidney Bloch and Peter Reddaway present a meticulously documented account of how the Soviet state weaponised the medical establishment to silence political opponents, intellectuals, and human rights advocates, stripping them of their dignity and freedom under the guise of clinical care. The authors argue with forensic precision that this abuse was not a fringe phenomenon but a deliberate, institutionalised policy sanctioned at the highest levels of Soviet power, casting a long shadow over the credibility of world psychiatry and international medical ethics. Drawing on firsthand testimonies, samizdat documents, and exhaustive research, Bloch and Reddaway force a reckoning with the complicity of global psychiatric organisations that looked the other way. A landmark work of political and medical history, it raises questions about the fragility of professional ethics in the face of authoritarian power that remain disturbingly relevant today.