Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

It is noteworthy that a whole number of mental patients who left the USSR, and who prior to that, in the West had been pronounced mentally healthy people, had received treatment and even at the present time, periodically receive treatment

:

in psychiatric hospitals. Such facts are being hushed up, which is an obvious indication of the ill-intentioned nature of this whole campaign.

-- The system of voting in the WPA is discriminatory and undemocratic, since the number of votes alloted to membercountries depends on the number of paychiatrists, and first of all, on the amount of dues. This has enabled a mall group of countries to implant their decisions on the rest of the WPA members, forms and ferezest, en the developing countries. We would like to recall to your attention that this discriminatory mechanism was employed' in Honolulu against Soviet paychiatry when a clanderous resolution was pushed through with 33 counties voting against it, and only 19 for it.

It is also necessary to emphasize that the cooperation of the WPA with the Psychiatric Association of the racist regime in the SAR is confirmation of its undemocratic principles.

It would seem that the WFA leadership, following the Charter, should concentrate its offorts and guide the activity

of all paychiatrists towards rasolving the professional tasks standing before it, however, the real activities of the WPA have been geared to another direction. The leadership of the WPA, instead of taking the read to uniting psychiatzists, be: embarked upon the path of splitting them, and has turned into an obedient tool in the hands of the forces which are using psychiatzy for their own political goals, aimed at fanning up contradictions and enmity among psychiatrists of differen

countries.

:

Consequently, it is quite apparent that the WTA losde: ship has allowed itself to become involved in outzight political activity end bes supported the slander against the Soviet Union. We have no doubts who trɔever that the WPA losdership, by ata setárioy, is dedag iiwepozable harm to th

[ocr errors]

common interests. of world psychiatry and to the unity of

psycaiatzists from different mutrisa or the world.

In eenzection with this, the All-Union Scientific Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists no longer considers it passible to remain a member of the WPA, and hereby officially notifies the leaderskip of its departure from the WPA.

At the same time, the All-Union Scientific Society of Neuropathologists and Psychia tudata has noticed all the Kational Psychiatzic Societies of the ressons for its deperture from the WEA.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Dr. Visotsky, for your statement.

Now, Dr. Reich, would you like to begin sir? I understand that you have some slides that you want to show. So at that time, we will turn out the lights so that we can better view your slides. STATEMENT OF DR. WALTER REICH, RESEARCH PSYCHIATRIST AND PROGRAM DIRECTOR, THE STAFF COLLEGE OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH, MEMBER, THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION'S TASK FORCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS, AND FORMER FELLOW OF THE KENNAN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED RUSSIAN STUDIES OF THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS

Dr. REICH. Before doing that, I should like to note that, though I am an employee of the National Institute of Mental Health, I am speaking here as a private citizen. I wish to indicate that the opinions I will express here are my own and not necessarily those of the NIMH.

I did prepare a statement which I distributed, but I thought that it might be useful to show some slides, two of which are also included in the prepared statement, in order to give a human dimension to the phenomenon we are discussing, and perhaps also to explain some facets of it that may be better explained by the use of audio/visual materials.

Mr. YATRON. Without objection, your entire statement will be made part of the record.

Dr. REICH. Thank you.

First slide, please.

This is Dr. Andrei Snezhnevsky who is, in effect the chief Soviet psychiatrist, though there is no such formal title. The photograph was taken by me in Moscow last year when I visited him and interviewed both him and other members of the staff of his Institute of Psychiatry of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Medical Sciences. A report of that experience was published in the New York Times Magazine, which I have submitted to the committee for the record.1

Dr. Snezhnevsky is important because he is the author the concepts of psychiatry, specifically the approach to the diagnosis of schizophrenia that are the concepts that are most frequently used in Soviet psychiatry and that in fact have been most frequently used in the diagnoses of dissidents. He is an extremely influential figure in Soviet psychiatry. He is now near retirement. His age, I believe, is 79.

He is important and influential not only because he has headed, for 21 years the main psychiatric research institute in the Soviet Union, the Institute of Psychiatry of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Medical Sciences, but also because he is the editor of the only psychiatric periodical, the Korsakov Journal of Psychiatry and Neuropathology, and was a very important and influential teacher for many years in the Central Post-Graduate Medical Institute's Department of Psychiatry, of which he was chairman before moving to the Institute of Psychiatry. As you can see, on the slide, Snezhnevsky has

[blocks in formation]

a large photo of Ernest Hemingway on his office wall; Hemingway is, Snezhnevsky has told me, his favorite writer.

May I have the next slide please.

Another important figure with whom I met, and who will probably be Dr. Snezhnevsky's successor, was Dr. Marat Vartanyan. Vartanyan who has himself never been involved, to my knowledge, in any way with the cases of dissidents. In many respects, he has been the diplomat of Soviet psychiatry and has represented his profession in the West. He is a very urbane figure, who insists that though he was trained as a psychiatrist, he is primarily a scientist. For many years he has headed the scientific laboratories of the Institute of Psychiatry.

May I have the next slide please.

Dr. Ruben Nadzharov is a close colleague of Dr. Snezhnevsky's, and was also present at the meeting; together with Dr. Snezhnevsky, he developed the theories that I will describe this morning. Next slide please.

This is a photo of the Serbsky Institute, which figures prominently in the reports of Soviet psychiatric abuse. It is the central forensic psychiatric institute of the Soviet Union; and it is the place to which many of the dissidents have been sent. It is not set up just to deal with dissidents. Rather, it is set up as a forensic psychiatric institute, and persons accused of all kinds of crimes-murder, rape, and other crimes-are sent here for evaluation if there is some doubt as to their mental health. But also sent here are persons accused of crimes related to dissents.

Next slide please.

This is a side view of the Serbsky institute. The gentleman in the foreground at the time that I was there was gesticulating to a patient inside the institute. When I raised my camera, he stopped gesticulating, not knowing who I was. This gives you a sense of the enclosed nature of this institution, which is in fact a kind of prison/hospital.

Next slide please.

This is Dr. Snezhnevsky in 1977, in Honolulu, at the Sixth World Congress of Psychiatry, the one that preceded the one that occurred last July in Vienna; the 1977 Congress was the one at which the Soviets were condemned for their abuse of psychiatry, and it was at the congress that I first met Snezhevsky. I interviewed him in his hotel room. This photograph was taken just before the meeting at which the Soviets were condemned.

Next slide please.

Just after I interviewed Snezhnevsky the Soviets held a press conference. I show this photograph of the press conference in order to identify not only Dr. Snezhnevsky, but also Dr. Georgi Morozov, the head of the Serbsky Institute; as it happens, Marozov is now also the head of the All Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists of the Soviet Union. It is Marozov who, more than any other Soviet psychiatrist, has been identified with the practice of diagnosing dissidents as mentally ill.

Next slide please.

This is Dr. Eduard Babayan, another Soviet psychiatrist, who is pointing an accusing finger at the American delegate during the voting session of the 1977 Psychiatric Congress at which the Sovi

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »