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Political Hazards in the Diagnosis of ‘Sluggish Schizophrenia’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Harold Merskey*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario; London Psychiatric Hospital, 850 Highbury Avenue, P. O. Box 2532, Terminal “A”, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 4HL
Bronislava Shafran
Affiliation:
3450 Wayne Avenue (Nr 15A), Bronx, New York 10467, USA; Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York, USA
*
Correspondence

Abstract

The concept of ‘sluggish schizophrenia’ is virtually limited to the USSR and some other East European countries, and may contribute to the mis-diagnosis of democrats as psychiatric patients. Recently, a number of articles have appeared in the Soviet literature relating the diagnosis of ‘sluggish schizophrenia’ or ‘slowly progressive schizophrenia’ to affective disorders, especially hypomania. Soviet publications on this theme from 1980 to 1984 are discussed, together with their relationship to questions on the abuse of psychiatry.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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