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.[1] Since the reprisal came from a government agency, that seems like a political abuse of psychiatry.Jeremystalked_{(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. --BrownHairedGirl (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| 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)

If you keep on slandering China, we will inform the Chinese government and good luck. Last guy who tried to oppose didn't eat supper that day.