Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse was a group that was founded by

Soviet dissident Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union in the period from the mid-1960s until t ...

Viktor Fainberg Viktor Isaakovich Fainberg (russian: Ви́ктор Исаа́кович Фа́йнберг, born 26 November 1931, Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR) is a philologist, prominent figure of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union, participant of the 1968 ...

in April 1975 and participated in the

struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union In the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent. During the leadership of Gener ...

from 1975 to 1988. The Campaign involved national and international medical bodies to reveal the monstrous abuse of human rights through the misuse of psychiatry.

Participants

The English branch was set up on 5 September 1975 as the British section of the Action Committee Against Abuses of Psychiatry for Political Purposes and composed of psychiatrists, other doctors, and laymen including

David Markham David Markham (3 April 1913 – 15 December 1983) was an English stage and film actor for over forty years. Markham was born Peter Basil Harrison in Wick, Worcestershire and died in Hartfield, East Sussex. In 1937 he married Olive Dehn (1914 ...

, Max Gammon,

William Shawcross William Hartley Hume Shawcross (born 28 May 1946, in Sussex, England) is a British writer and commentator, and a former Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Education Shawcross was educated at St Aubyns Preparatory School ...

, George Theiner,

James Thackara James Thackara (born 7 December 1944, in Los Angeles) is an American writer who has lived in the United Kingdom since 1971 and became a British citizen in 2007. He has published three novels – ''America's Children'' (1984), ''Ahab's Daughter' ...

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

Marina Voikhanskaya Marina Voikhanskaya (russian: Марина Войханская) (born Marina Izraïlevna Fridlender on 11 November 1934) is a Soviet-British psychiatrist who opposed the detention of patients who were committed to Soviet psychiatric hospitals fo ...

, Eric Avebury,

Helen Bamber Helen Rae Bamber OBE, ''née'' Helen Balmuth (1 May 1925 – 21 August 2014), was a British psychotherapist and human rights activist. She worked with Holocaust survivors in Germany after the concentration camps were liberated in 1945. In 1947, s ...

, and

Vladimir Bukovsky Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (russian: link=no, Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 195 ...

. The chair of the organisation was British psychiatrist

Henry Dicks Henry Victor Dicks (1900 – 12 July 1977) was a British psychiatrist. He drew on his wartime experiences, which included the medical care of Rudolf Hess, to develop views on authoritarian personality and the collective psychopathology of authorit ...

. From the fall of 1976, its director was

.; ; Committees similar to the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse were later set up in France, Germany, and Switzerland.

Activities

Campaigns of the British section of the group included a rally against psychiatric abuse in July 1976 in

Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commem ...

and led to the release of Vladimir Borisov,

and

Leonid Plyushch Leonid Ivanovych Plyushch ( uk, Леоні́д Іва́нович Плющ, ; 26 April 1938, Naryn, Kirghiz SSR – 4 June 2015, Bessèges, France) was a Ukrainian mathematician and Soviet dissident. Although he was employed to work on Soviet sp ...

. The group issued correspondence, bulletins, and other documents which are deposited in the

International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figur ...

, Amsterdam. The group was so effective that by the early 1980s Soviet psychiatry had pariah status. Opposition in Britain including the Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse led the

Royal College of Psychiatrists The Royal College of Psychiatrists is the main professional organisation of psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, and is responsible for representing psychiatrists, for psychiatric research and for providing public information about mental health ...

to establish the Special Committee on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry in 1978. The Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse actually never said what its fallback position was, this must mean that the Campaign favoured confinement of the innocent in prisons instead of mental hospitals.

References

Sources

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Participants

Activities

References

Sources

Further reading