Komunizm w psychiatrii
Communism in Psychiatry

Summary/Abstract: Grzegorz Michalik, Psychiatria w Polsce w latach 1945–1956. Nauka i opieka zdrowotna, Warszawa 2021, ss. 488.Grzegorz Michalik’s study is located on the borderline of the history of science, history of ideas and social history. It is based on hitherto unknown sources and periodicals from 1945–1956. The work consists of ten chapters. First, the author outlines the history of psychiatry, starting from the end of the 18th century. He shows the development of this discipline in Poland during the partitions. Later he discusses the impact of psychoanalysis and eugenics on the development of psychiatry in the first half of the 20th century. Then he presents the specifics of the Soviet model of psychiatry and the doctrine of Pavlovism developed in the 1930s and 1940s, which, according to the author, should rather be labeled as ‘Pavlovism-Lysenkoism’. The main part of the book shows the stages of the Sovietization of Polish psychiatry, including the attitudes of Polish psychiatrists (from conformism to attempts at mimicry). Methods of treatment and conditions in psychiatric hospitals are also discussed. The author puts forward the thesis that before 1956 the problems in the psychiatric treatment had not been solved. Political changes in 1956 coincided with the invention of ground-breaking drugs, which marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of psychiatry – psychopharmacology.

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