It's yet another example of the use of mental illness as a device of
social control.
I'm sure other people have observed how the psychiatric system has been
used as a form of political control. Bentall notes that people would be
given a diagnosis of schizophrenia for being capitalist or anti-party
line in Russia. I wonder if the Soviet psychiatric were better than the
gulags where Alexandar Solsernichen wrote his book. I think socialists
may have gotten a similar diagnosis in the West. There are stories of
people being put in asylums by the French for being Libertines.
There is an interplay between social and cultural norms and mental
illness. The overdiagnosis rates (of schizophrenia in black men) in the
UK are even higher than the overdiagnosis rates in the US.
But there's a tragedy here. A real human tragedy. The asylum or social
prison the author in the article wrote about would have been a terrible
place. I'm not sure a prison in those days would be worse than an asylum.
There's a relevance to the modern day. Treatment with antipsychotic
medication for anything isn't a pleasant experience. They take away too
much. It's not just the reduced life expectancy. It's the reduced human
quality of life lived. They are shackles and straightjackets for the
mind. People who choose to take them to relieve the distress of unusual
states of mind or consciousness willingly and knowingly accept the cost.
To do that because a person is 'socially ugly' or undesirable
politically is immoral however in practice we live in a racist society
with racist mental health professional (in practice, though not in
intention).
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