If a person does not agree with you on some important issue, then you can recognize his right to a personal point of view or doubt his sanity. This choice determines what kind of person you are. Surprisingly, the Soviet school of psychiatry considered sick people not only political dissidents, staunch opponents of the socialist system, but also simply extraordinary creative citizens. All of them were diagnosed with "sluggish schizophrenia."
There is no such disease
To begin with, the disease we are talking about simply does not exist. Only on the territory of the USSR and a number of Eastern European countries in 1970-1980 were patients in psychiatric clinics given such a diagnosis.
Currently, Russia has an international classification of diseases, approved by the World Health Organization in 1994 (ICD-10). And there is not even a mention of sluggish schizophrenia in it.
True, the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation has prepared its own version of the classification of diseases, adapted to the traditions of domestic medicine, which, although it does not contain the above diagnosis, but there is a so-called "schizotypal disorder", which is close in meaning to sluggish or, as it is also called by experts, low-grade schizophrenia.
However, the Ministry of Health allows a reservation that schizotypal disorder requires additional diagnosis.
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Where did it come from?
The author of the scientific concept that asserted the existence of such a disease is Doctor of Medical Sciences Andrei Snezhnevsky (1904-1987), who is considered one of the founders of the Moscow school of psychiatry. In the late 60s of the twentieth century, he proposed to the scientific community to introduce a new diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia." His theory was soon accepted by Soviet colleagues.
Professor A. V. Snezhnevsky drew on the works of the famous Swiss psychiatrist Eigen Bleuler, who back in 1911 spoke of the existence of a latent form of this mental disorder. The scientist did not consider schizophrenia to be a pathological state of the human nervous system, which significantly expanded the boundaries of this concept.
In 1966, at the IV World Congress of Psychiatrists in Madrid, A. V. Snezhnevsky read a report on latent schizophrenia, in which he especially focused on its sluggish course, when the disease practically does not develop towards clinical deterioration, and a person may seem healthy for many years.
The world scientific community did not support the concept of the Soviet scientist, because in this case, the diagnosis of schizophrenia would cover a number of other diseases, such as depressive or manic psychosis, neurotic disorder, various phobias and obsessions, hypochondriacal and affective states, depression, and small personality traits. For example, impulses of inspired creativity.
But in the Soviet psychiatric school, the opinion of Professor A. V. Snezhnevsky became fundamental. Many colleagues supported him. For example, Doctor of Medical Sciences Daniil Lunts (1912-1977), who was also a colonel of the KGB of the USSR, in his scientific works argued that a patient may suffer from sluggish schizophrenia, even if his behavior does not show any personality changes and prove the diagnosis clinically impossible.
Of course, anyone can be put under such a definition of illness. Moreover, the luminaries of domestic psychiatry argued that only a specialist is able to recognize sluggish schizophrenia, while relatives and friends still have no idea.
All dissidents are psychos
The state security agencies of the USSR quickly realized how much benefit could be derived from A. V. Snezhnevsky. In 1970-1980, the diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia" was systematically made to dissidents - convinced opponents of the political system that existed in our country. This was done in order to discredit any ideas that did not coincide with the position of the CPSU, as well as to isolate dangerous dissenting citizens from society.
Since many dissidents were creative people, their personality traits, such as originality of thinking, depression and frequent mood swings, lack of full adaptation to the social environment, frequent changes of interests, and even disorganized behavior, were used as confirmation of the diagnosis. In other words, if a person was absent-minded or did not follow the daily routine, then this could also be imputed to him. Sometimes the indication for the diagnosis was religiosity, which should not be inherent in a citizen of the USSR, as some experts believed.
By the way, for several years the Leningrad and Kiev schools of psychiatry refused to accept A. V. Snezhnevsky, as the only faithful one, did not recognize the dissidents as schizophrenics, but surrendered under pressure from state structures. Subsequently, this diagnosis began to be made not only to dissidents, but also to asocial elements, vagabonds and guys who evade military service.
In 1989, a delegation of psychiatrists from the United States visited Moscow. They were able to examine 27 patients who were unreasonably detained in clinics, according to human rights organizations. The Americans did not reveal any mental disorders in 14 of the patients examined, three more were recognized as sane people with minor personality traits. Foreigners were amazed that among the indications for the diagnosis of "sluggish schizophrenia" Soviet psychiatrists also took into account an increased sense of self-esteem (!), Which apparently a citizen of the USSR should simply not have.
Who suffered
Dutch human rights activist Robert van Voeren, head of the international organization Global Initiative in Psychiatry, claims in his numerous speeches in the Western media that about a third of all political prisoners in the USSR in 1970-1980 were forcibly placed in specialized clinics. They went through a crippling mental and health compulsory treatment. And although official statistics on this matter simply do not exist, we are talking about thousands of spoiled lives.
For example, the poet and human rights activist Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936-2013), who participated in a demonstration against the introduction of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia, ended up for compulsory treatment in a mental hospital, because Professor Daniil Lunts wrote in his conclusion that the patient “is not excluded the possibility of a sluggish schizophrenia.
Over the years, this diagnosis was made to the biologist Zhores Medvedev, the politician Vyacheslav Igrunov, the mathematician Leonid Plyushch, the dissident Olga Iofe and many others. There could be any reason for the persecution: from printing anti-Soviet leaflets to reading a samizdat copy of A. I. Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago".
Poet Viktor Nekipelov and writer Vladimir Bukovsky also underwent psychiatric examination at the V. P. Serbsky on suspicion of sluggish schizophrenia, but they were recognized as sane, since there was no professor D. R. Luntz.
Condemnation and remorse
Back in 1977, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), at a congress held in Honolulu, condemned the use of medicine for political repression in the USSR. But Soviet specialists did not agree with the opinion of their foreign colleagues, refusing to participate in WPA events. True, during the years of perestroika, domestic medicine recognized the shameful fact of the existence of "political psychiatry."
According to the International Society for the Defense of Human Rights, in 1988-1989, approximately 2 million people were removed from psychiatric records in the USSR. All of them had previously been diagnosed with "sluggish schizophrenia", canceled under pressure from the Western scientific community. This is how the membership of domestic specialists in the WPA was restored.
And yet, many modern Russian psychiatrists rely on the works of A. V. Snezhnevsky in his work, diagnosing some of his patients with "schizotypal disorder", which is close in essence to a disease that was recognized as non-existent in Europe and the United States.
Mistake or crime
When a person, mentally healthy or with minor personality traits (fears, worries, depression), is seized and forcibly taken to a mental hospital for treatment, this can be called a crime.
The scientific community is still debating: Professor A. V. Snezhnevsky specially developed the concept of sluggish schizophrenia to combat dissidence in the USSR or the state security agencies, and the psychiatrists who collaborated with them only deftly took advantage of the scientist's delusions.
Most experts blame the repressive state apparatus, and not the Moscow psychiatric school, which they blame only for the insufficient development of the theoretical base, which led to numerous medical errors.
The disease, which develops slowly and does not manifest itself in any way, turned out to be a real find for the employees of the KGB of the USSR. It was enough just to find the "correct" psychiatrist, and the diagnosis turned into a real sentence.
Orynganym Tanatarova