SOVIET SPECIAL PSYCHIATRIC-HOSPITALS - WHERE THE SYSTEM WAS CRIMINAL AND THE INMATES WERE SANE

The subversion of psychiatric intervention for political purposes in t he USSR during the 1970s and 1980s resulted in both intra-psychic and subsequent adaptational dysfunction in those dissidents who physically survived it. Incarceration in special psychiatric hospitals subjected the inmates to a sense of helplessness under the control of a malevol ent power, futility, despair, danger from close and contentious contac t with hardened criminals and the violently insane, overdosage with mi nd-altering and body-distorting neuroleptic drugs, and a Kafkaesque am biguity concerning the specific terms of institutionalisation. Dischar ge did not bring release from continued threats and the eroded social networks to which the inmates returned subjected them to a new set of stressors. While some families remained intact and provided necessary support during the re-entry period, many families had been destroyed e ither by the circumstances of the family member's incarceration or by the length of the victim's stay in the psychiatric hospital. Wives lef t, people died, friends deserted, jabs evaporated, and often there was not even a home to accept them. Social agencies were either hostile o r indifferent to their plight. Many felt like they had been thrown ove rboard from a prison ship without a life preserver. It was the proverb ial transition from the frying pan into the fire.