Okej, den här artikeln från engelska Wikipedia lutar åt det hållet som jag försökte hinta i trådstarten:
Citat:
There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union,[1] based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem.[2] It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.[3]
During the leadership of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, psychiatry was used to disable and remove from society political opponents ("dissidents") who openly expressed beliefs that contradicted the official dogma.[4][5] The term "philosophical intoxication", for instance, was widely applied to the mental disorders diagnosed when people disagreed with the country's Communist leaders and, by referring to the writings of the Founding Fathers of Marxism–Leninism—Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin—made them the target of criticism.[6]
Article 58-10 of the Stalin-era Criminal Code, "Anti-Soviet agitation", was to a considerable degree preserved in the new 1958 RSFSR Criminal Code as Article 70 "Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda". In 1967 a weaker law, Article 190-1 "Dissemination of fabrications known to be false, which defame the Soviet political and social system", was added to the RSFSR Criminal Code. These laws were frequently applied in conjunction with the system of diagnosis for mental illness, developed by Academician Andrei Snezhnevsky. Together they established a framework within which non-standard beliefs could easily be defined as a criminal offence and the basis, subsequently, for a psychiatric diagnosis.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi...e_Soviet_Union
Att psykiatrer traditionellt sett har haft en stor makt över människor i de forna Sovjetstaterna (där de spelade en viktig roll i att trycka ner meningsmotståndare genom att klassa dem som psykiskt sjuka eller göra deras regimkritiska åsikter till en del av en förmodad psykisk ohälseproblematik), vilket syns idag i form av att psykiatrer fortfarande har en högre status i dessa länder, vilket kan vara en del av förklaringen till min uppfattning om att specialiseringen psykiatri inom läkaryrket inte har lika låg status bland människor med bakgrund i de här länderna, som hos svenska läkarstudenter.
