Are we moving from the Tranquilizing Chair to Virtual Reality?
The former involves sensory deprivation and coercion, while the latter represents non-coercive, sensory overstimulation.
This shift could be seen as more cooptative.
Category Archives: Benjamin Rush
Carlo Angela, allievo di Babiński e politico (2022)
La Rai, radiotelevisione italiana, ha realizzato nel 2017 un documentario intitolato “Carlo Angela, un medico stratega”.
Angela fu anche Maestro Venerabile della loggia “Propaganda” di Torino e, come il collega neuropsichiatra Ugo Cerletti sviluppatore dell’elettroshock o terapia elettroconvulsivante, membro del Supremo Consiglio dei 33.
Roots of Polish psychiatry (2022)
“The roots of Freemasonry, one of the most important cultural and social phenomena of modern times, are clearly European, but the origins of this fraternal organization are as obscure as they are legendary.”
“There has been very little or no research so far into the impact of the Masonic ideas of tolerance, freedom, equality and brotherhood on the development of psychiatry. The degree of this influence was certainly different from one country to another.”
“Polish Freemasonry was reborn in 1920, with an important role played by three psychiatrists: Rafał Radziwiłłowicz, Witold Łuniewski and Jan Mazurkiewicz, who were Grand Masters of the Grand National Lodge of Poland.”
“Freemason psychiatrists headed the Polish Psychiatric Association throughout the entire inter-war period: Chodźko in 1920–23 and 1928–30, and Mazurkiewicz in 1923–28 and 1930–47. Radziwiłłowicz was the General Secretary of the Association between 1920 and 1928, and he was also the founder of Rocznik Psychiatryczny (Psychiatric Annual), the journal published by the Association.”
‘The Last King of America’ and proto-psychiatry (2022)
“Though the incapacity of the King had been discussed in Parliament […] the British Constitution (was) not merely shaken, it (was) dissolved, and the reign (was) given to every revolutionary projector, who may seek to raise himself hereafter upon the ruins of his country,” and the situation makes “the sovereign a slave of his servants.”
“The two accounts” – Jain and Sarin concluded – “preserved in the same set of documents by Arthur Cole, regarding events in Coorg in 1809 and London in 1810, highlight the tension between madness and a sense of political order. The account in the Madras Courier emphasizes that the paramount power of the Regent cannot, and should not, be restricted by any other process, parliamentary or medical, as it was absolute, even though the King was insane. The suggestion that there should be parliamentary oversight was tantamount to treason.”
Fanon, Third World revolutionary and psychiatrist between Moscow and Washington, D.C. (2022)
“Frantz Fanon’s psychiatric career was crucial to his thinking as an anti-colonialist writer and activist. Much of his iconic work was shaped by his experiences working in hospitals in France, Algeria and Tunisia. [His psychiatric writing] from 1951 to 1960 in tandem with his political work reveals much about how Fanon’s thought developed, showing that, for him, psychiatry was part of a much wider socio-political struggle. His political, revolutionary and literary lives should not then be separated from the psychiatric practice and writings that shaped his thinking about oppression, alienation and the search for freedom.”
“It was out of desperation and his lack of success with Soviet doctors, Fanon’s biographer David Macey reports, that Fanon had agreed to American offers to fly him to the United States.”
A new global psychiatric power? ‘CNN Talk Show’ – 1/13 (2021)
For Dr. Frances, who was claiming that we should discuss politics instead of psychiatry, language was moving from political to psychological metaphorical, while for Dr. Lee language was moving directly from political to literal technical psychological language and concepts, used to discuss a political theme. Both psychiatrists were moving, despite specific content discussed, language to the psychological sphere, metaphorically for Dr. Frances, literally for Dr. Lee.
While opposing each other on a political theme, the net movement of the two debating psychiatrists is from political to psychological language.
“What benefit does Russia derive from this Institute?” Tsar Nicholas II on the Psycho-Neurological Institute (2021)
The last Emperor of Russia and Vladimir Bekhterev’s Psycho-Neurological Institute revolutionaries.
Federico Soldani: intervista TV su psichiatrizzazione del linguaggio e commento voto U.S.A. (2020)
Intervista TV in diretta a Federico Soldani su psichiatrizzazione del linguaggio e commento voto in U.S.A. – di Francesco Ippolito – Il Segno dei Tempi, 50 Canale – Venerdi’ 13 Novembre 2020
A new global psychiatric power? Intro (2020)
More than one year ago I presented the talk “Are we witnessing the emergence of a new global psychiatric power?” at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London, in the summer of 2019. The (anti)political, technocratic and revolutionary globalist agenda was clearly and unambiguously presented as the one that would have benefitted from phenomena and discourses of mass global psychiatrization. In 2019 such phenomena and prospects were most definitely not under the unprecedented level of attention we are witnessing today in 2020.
Are we witnessing the emergence of a new global psychiatric power? (2019)
The current public psychiatrization of “the most powerful man in the world,” as the media often describe the President of the United States of America, could be seen as a new paradigm shift in contemporary power.
In addition to the increasing use of a psychologized lexicon in everyday speech, a role might be played by such spectacle communicating symbolically, and contributing to, a global cultural shift towards a subjectivist worldview and a progressive de-politicization of citizenship.
Da cittadini a pazienti: una minaccia a cui resistere (2020)
Lezioni sulla Pandemia presso l’International University College of Turin http://www.iuctorino.it/
Ugo Mattei e Federico Soldani, 4 maggio 2020
“Il declino della legge come strumento per il controllo sociale e il suo superamento attraverso la gestione tecnologica, mentale e medica volta a prevenire comportamenti devianti, senza preoccupazione alcuna circa gli effetti deleteri di tale sostituzione”.
Stiamo assistendo alla nascita di un nuovo potere psichiatrico globale? (2019)
L’attuale psichiatrizzazione pubblica dell ‘”uomo più potente del mondo”, come spesso i media descrivono il presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America, potrebbe essere vista come un nuovo cambio di paradigma nel potere contemporaneo.
Oltre al crescente uso di un lessico psicologizzato nel linguaggio quotidiano, un ruolo potrebbe essere giocato da tale spettacolo comunicando simbolicamente e contribuendo a uno spostamento culturale globale verso una visione del mondo soggettivista e una progressiva de-politicizzazione della cittadinanza.