Abstract:Over the past decades, the formerly socialist countries of East Central Europe and Eurasia have experienced a range of transformations which bear directly upon the domains of mental health, psychiatry, and psychology. In particular, the disciplines and professions concerned with the human mind, brain, and behavior ("the psy-ences") were strongly affected by sociopolitical changes spanning the state-socialist and postsocialist periods. These disciplines' relationship to the state, their modes of knowledge produ… Show more
“…Psychiatry under the Soviet rule was a political tool of repression through ‘diagnosing political non‐conformists as mentally ill’ (Raikhel and Bemme 2016: 158) and a means of abusive practices towards individuals including ‘adverse living conditions’ or ‘inhumane treatment’ (Van Voren 2013: 7). It resulted in its very low positions in the hierarchy of specialists: When I was studying, it was the least popular field, seen as a punishment […] because psychiatry wasn’t solely a medical field, it was a political system which was exterminating people.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…2002: 104), which facilitates their exploration. The article contributes to the literature about mental health and stigma of mental illness in the former socialist countries that remain understudied (Raikhel and Bemme 2016, Winkler et al . 2016), as well as to the literature on how stigma of mental illness is shaped by local contexts and values (Angermeyer et al .…”
After the regime collapse, the former socialist societies in Central and Eastern Europe experienced rapid social and economic transformations. Consequently, mental health deterioration coupled with ambitions to break with the past triggered reforms of mental health systems. Yet, 30 years later, mental health in the region remains poor. Stigma of mental illness may be one of the factors that delays help seeking and, therefore, maintains status quo. Thus, the aim of the article is to better understand the roots of stigma and the process of stigmatisation in one of these countries – Lithuania. Drawing on Norbert Elias’s model of established‐outsider relations, the article presents the analysis of 23 in‐depth interviews with healthcare providers and users of services diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorders. Said analysis reveals how stigma of mental illness might result in damaged self‐image and shame of feeling different. Mental illness and healthcare seeking are perceived as a threat to culturally and historically determined self‐values, at the core of which seems to be intolerance of difference. The article contributes not only to research concerning mental health in a relatively understudied region of Central and Eastern Europe, but also to existing literature on stigma as embedded in a local context.
“…Psychiatry under the Soviet rule was a political tool of repression through ‘diagnosing political non‐conformists as mentally ill’ (Raikhel and Bemme 2016: 158) and a means of abusive practices towards individuals including ‘adverse living conditions’ or ‘inhumane treatment’ (Van Voren 2013: 7). It resulted in its very low positions in the hierarchy of specialists: When I was studying, it was the least popular field, seen as a punishment […] because psychiatry wasn’t solely a medical field, it was a political system which was exterminating people.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…2002: 104), which facilitates their exploration. The article contributes to the literature about mental health and stigma of mental illness in the former socialist countries that remain understudied (Raikhel and Bemme 2016, Winkler et al . 2016), as well as to the literature on how stigma of mental illness is shaped by local contexts and values (Angermeyer et al .…”
After the regime collapse, the former socialist societies in Central and Eastern Europe experienced rapid social and economic transformations. Consequently, mental health deterioration coupled with ambitions to break with the past triggered reforms of mental health systems. Yet, 30 years later, mental health in the region remains poor. Stigma of mental illness may be one of the factors that delays help seeking and, therefore, maintains status quo. Thus, the aim of the article is to better understand the roots of stigma and the process of stigmatisation in one of these countries – Lithuania. Drawing on Norbert Elias’s model of established‐outsider relations, the article presents the analysis of 23 in‐depth interviews with healthcare providers and users of services diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorders. Said analysis reveals how stigma of mental illness might result in damaged self‐image and shame of feeling different. Mental illness and healthcare seeking are perceived as a threat to culturally and historically determined self‐values, at the core of which seems to be intolerance of difference. The article contributes not only to research concerning mental health in a relatively understudied region of Central and Eastern Europe, but also to existing literature on stigma as embedded in a local context.
“…It has also certainly been the case that the collapse of Communism enabled an expansion of psychotherapeutic practice, both in terms of the quantity of professionals offering therapy, and the variety of approaches available in private practice (Rose, 1991 ). But this isn’t, of course, to say that the psychotherapeutic professions, and the knowledge they produced, were absent, or did not hold a stake in society under socialism (Buda, Tomcsanyi, Harmatta, Csaky-Pallavicini, & Paneth, 2009 ; Calloway, 1993 ; Doboş, 2015 ; Raikhel & Bemme, 2016 ).…”
This article traces what recent research and primary sources tell us about psychotherapy in Communist Europe, and how it survived both underground and above the surface. In particular, I will elaborate on the psychotherapeutic techniques that were popular across the different countries and language cultures of the Soviet sphere, with a particular focus upon the Cold War period. This article examines the literature on the mixed fortunes of psychoanalysis and group therapies in the region. More specifically, it focuses upon the therapeutic modalities such as work therapy, suggestion and rational therapy, which gained particular popularity in the Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The latter two approaches had striking similarities with parallel developments in behavioural and cognitive therapies in the West. In part, this was because clinicians on both sides of the ‘iron curtain’ drew upon shared European traditions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, this article argues that in the Soviet sphere, those promoting these approaches appropriated socialist thought as a source of inspiration and justification, or at the very least, as a convenient political shield.
“…But as scholars have pointed out (Kipnis ; Yan ), in order to understand the psychological shocks rippling through contemporary China, it is important to remember that logics social scientists gloss as late modern or neoliberal are folded into processes of “industrialization, urbanization, and nation‐building” (Kipnis , 5) that unfolded much earlier in the West. Furthermore, in different sociohistorical contexts psychological technologies “can have radically different meanings and effects” (Raikhel and Bemme , 164). In particular, psychologists in postsocialist societies often see themselves as working to reform communist social mores (Cohen , ; Junghans ; Matza , ).…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Attending to the "psy fever" (xinli re) (Zhang 2015) or "psycho-boom" (Kleinman et al 2011, 29;Huang 2015) in contemporary China in the context of liberalism complements recent scholarship depicting self-help psychology as a mode of biopolitical governance in China (Yang 2014;Zhang 2015) and as a globalizing neoliberal technology of the self (Wilce and Fenigsen 2016). Anthropologists have closely scrutinized the role of the "psy-ences" (Raikhel and Bemme 2016) in depoliticizing and normalizing the conditions of brutal markets, teaching people to assume responsibility for conjuring a viable life for themselves, encouraging them to be "enterprising" (Rose 1998) in a risky environment. But as scholars have pointed out (Kipnis 2012;Yan 2010), in order to understand the psychological shocks rippling through contemporary China, it is important to remember that logics social scientists gloss as late modern or neoliberal are folded into processes of "industrialization, urbanization, and nation-building" (Kipnis 2012, 5) that unfolded much earlier in the West.…”
Young professionals in China are eagerly studying what are called communication skills, particularly public speaking. This article reads technologies of self‐presentation in the context of tentatively liberal social imaginaries, and as therapeutic resources for connecting with others. Entering Toastmasters public speaking clubs in Beijing, we see psychosocial techniques and institutional forms that anchor people otherwise floating in a fragmented urban space. Club members actively seek to be objectified on stage, to become self‐aware under the gaze of an audience. They practice locating themselves within an imagined public, as individuals. However, members also repurpose their clubs into comprehensive social resources, and they construct a critical historical consciousness. While members of public speaking clubs pursue self‐definition, they do so in ways that challenge liberal understandings of autonomy and identity. We can hear these tensions by listening to how Chinese therapists use psychology to articulate social critiques. While both psychotherapists and members of public speaking clubs participate in a modernist cultural politics, club members do not regard personal relationships as antagonistic. Young adults in urban China are getting on stage in order to connect with other people. Like their peers elsewhere, they are learning the power of self‐definition in a world of strangers.
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