Psikhushka

Psikhushka ("????????") is a Russian colloquialism for "psychiatric hospital". It has been occasionally used in English since the dissident movement in the Soviet Union became known in the West. In the Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were used by the authorities as prisons for forced treatment of political prisoners in order to isolate them from "normal" society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. The official explanation was that "no sane person would declaim against Soviet government and communism".

See also

• Psychiatric imprisonment
• Human rights
• Gulag