In the bad ol' days of bureaucratic communism, psychiatrists contributed their diagnostic services to the state to help rein in trouble-makers. Take "sluggish schizophrenia", a diagnosis characterized by “pessimism, poor social adaptation and conflict with authorities” and frequently used to facilitate the psychiatric incarceration of political dissenters in the USSR and Eastern Bloc countries. Thanks to sluggish schizophrenia, the Soviet Union had three times as many schizophrenic patients as the US - and Moscow had the highest rate of schizophrenia in the world.

Why were so many psychiatrists such willing accomplices of communist regimes?  Career advancement? Fear?  For some, sure.  But apparently most thought they were doing the right thing -  the state needed them and they believed in the state. As the British Medical Association put it, the role of psychiatrists in these countries was largely a matter of:

  • an underlying ideology which embodies an unquestioning belief in its unique moral and historical correctness
  • a perceived need to have science validate ideology
  • a medical profession which takes its ethical starting point and its ultimate obligations from the needs of the state.

- Medicine betrayed: the participation of doctors in human rights abuses. 1992. p 67

So what does this have to do with us? Well, I'm thinking the comrades were an extreme case, but we're not so different now. Just tweak the above a little and maybe you'll see what I mean:

  • an underlying set of political convictions held with a robust belief in their unique moral and historical correctness
  • a perceived need to have science validate these convictions
  • a mental health profession which takes its ethical starting point and its ultimate obligations from a vision of the ideal society

Of course, these days the point of politically-biased psychologizing isn't to institutionalize undesirables - just to marginalize their ideas and opinions.

Next: Spotting political bias in psychological research

Reference:

British Medical Association. Medicine betrayed: the participation of doctors in human rights abuses. Zed Books; 1992. ISBN 1-85649-104-8.