The Dialectics of Labour in a Psychiatric Ward: Work Therapy in the Kaschenko Hospital

Sirotkina, Irina; Kokorina, Marina

doi:10.1007/978-1-137-49092-6_2

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The Soviet work ethos also had an impact on psychiatric institutions, where therapeutic work became the dominant model, as Sirotkina and Kokorina (2015) 2017; 2018), defectologists also developed an instrumental outlook on disabled children and strove for an improvement of their productive abilities. Galmarini-Kabala ( 2019) similarly argues that the idea of overcoming disabilities by fostering productivity in children resonated well with the Marxist idea of labour as an emancipating force.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Historiographical Trends in Scholarship on Disability and Socialism in Eastern Europe

Dinu

2022

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

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This paper seeks to outline recent trends in historical research on disability during state socialism in Eastern Europe. In doing so, it explores how an emerging generation of historians have investigated various aspects of disability in Eastern Europe before 1989 and raises the question of whether there was a distinct experience of disability under state socialism. Drawing on studies published in English and German, the paper traces both Soviet discourses and practices after 1917 and Central and Eastern European trajectories after 1945. It argues that disability policies and expert discourses were informed by a productivist logic as a governing strategy to increase work capacity and to integrate the disabled into socialist society. The paper concludes by discussing the need for a transnational, comparative approach for conceptualising how disability was construed during communism in Eastern Europe.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Historiographical Trends in Scholarship on Disability and Socialism in Eastern Europe

Dinu

2022

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

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“…The infamous Pavlov session of 1950 has been portrayed as a watershed moment in this regard (Windholz, 1997;Windholz, 1999), whereby the Pavlovian concept of mental illness as a problem resulting from higher cortical structures was firmly established, later being exported to (then) friendly nations, including China (Gao, 2015), Cuba (Lambe, 2017), Romania (Dobos, 2015) and others. At the same time, Marx's emphasis on the liberating potential of labour helped propel work therapy to a position of elevated importance within Soviet psychiatric hospitals (Sirotkina and Kokorina, 2015). Other scholars, meanwhile, have highlighted how diagnostic practices could be reimagined depending on how they related to the wider socialist project.…”

Section: Socialist By Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond ideological platitudes: socialism and psychiatry in Eastern Europe

Savelli

2018

Palgrave Commun

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For both contemporaneous commentators and historians, psychiatry within what was Communist Europe has largely been discussed through the prism of politics and ideology. Recently, scholars have begun to debate the extent to which psychiatric practices within post-WWII Eastern Europe were beholden to the ideological aspirations of the political elite. This paper enters into these debates by suggesting the need for more nuance in how historians analyse the relationship between ideology and psychiatry in this context. Specifically, it argues that there is a need to differentiate between psychiatric practices that were socialist by design-where professional knowledge was theoretically guided by ideological considerations-and those that were socialist by default-where practices were shaped by the socialist context without being meaningfully inspired by ideology. In order to demonstrate these distinctions, this paper reflects upon psychiatric developments within Communist Yugoslavia (1945-1991). By drawing a clearer distinction between "socialist by design" and "socialism by default", it becomes easier to reconnect Eastern Europe to the broader historiography of twentieth century psychiatry, while simultaneously providing new insights into the experience of state-sponsored Communism.

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“…For example, Irina Sirotkina and Marina Kokorina's essay focuses on work therapy, which was valued by Marxism-Leninism not only for its economic value, but also as a resource of health and moral benefits. 20 Contrary to prevailing beliefs in the omnipotence of anything Soviet, Mat Savelli presents the case of Yugoslavia where innovations in psychiatry were more inspired by the West than by Pavlov. 21 According to Savelli, this was possible because local professionals enjoyed a relatively high degree of independence from the USSR.…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

‘We Won’t Ban Castrating Pervs Despite What Europe Might Think!’: Czech Medical Sexology and the Practice of Therapeutic Castration

Lišková

Bělehradová

2019

Med. Hist.

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The Czech Republic holds one of the highest numbers of men labelled as sexual delinquents worldwide who have undergone the irreversible process of surgical castration – a policy that has elicited strong international criticism. Nevertheless, Czech sexology has not changed its attitude towards ‘therapeutic castration’, which remains widely accepted and practised. In this paper, we analyse the negotiation of expertise supporting castration and demonstrate how the changes in institutional matrices and networks of experts (Eyal 2013) have impacted the categorisation of patients and the methods of treatment. Our research shows the great importance of historical development that tied Czech sexology with the state. Indeed, Czech sexology has been profoundly institutionalised since the early 1970s. In accordance with the state politics of that era, officially named Normalisation, sexology focused on sexual deviants and began creating a treatment programme that included therapeutic castration. This practice, the aim of which is to protect society from sex offenders, has changed little since. We argue that it is the expert–state alliance that enables Czech sexologists to preserve the status quo in the treatment of sexual delinquents despite international pressure. Our research underscores the continuity in medical practice despite the regime change in 1989. With regard to previous scholarship on state-socialist Czechoslovakia, we argue that it was the medical mainstream that developed and sustained disciplining and punitive features.

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The Dialectics of Labour in a Psychiatric Ward: Work Therapy in the Kaschenko Hospital

Cited by 11 publications

References 1 publication

Recent Historiographical Trends in Scholarship on Disability and Socialism in Eastern Europe

Recent Historiographical Trends in Scholarship on Disability and Socialism in Eastern Europe

Beyond ideological platitudes: socialism and psychiatry in Eastern Europe

‘We Won’t Ban Castrating Pervs Despite What Europe Might Think!’: Czech Medical Sexology and the Practice of Therapeutic Castration

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