Semyon Gluzman
Encyclopedia
Semyon Fishelevich Gluzman (September 10, 1946, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) is a Ukrainian psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

, human rights activist, the president and founder of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association, founder of the American-Ukrainian Bureau for Human Rights, director of the International Medical Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of War and Totalitarian Regimes, a member of the Council of Experts under the Ukraine's Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. He also is сo-chairperson of the Babi Yar Committee, ex-dissident and ex-prisoner, author of numerous interviews and scientific publications on issues of human rights, law and ethics in psychiatry, social psychiatry.

Semyon Gluzman was the first psychiatrist in the Soviet Union who openly opposed Soviet abuse of psychiatry against dissenters. In 1971, Gluzman wrote a psychiatric report on General Pyotr Grigorenko
Pyotr Grigorenko
Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko or Pyotr Grigoryevich Grigorenko was a high-ranked Soviet Army commander of Ukrainian descent, later a prominent Soviet human rights activist, dissident and writer.-Early life:Petro Grigorenko was born in a village of rural Zaporizhzhia Oblast,...

 who spoke against the human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. Gluzman came to the conclusion that Grigorenko was mentally sane and had been taken to mental hospitals for political reasons. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gluzman was forced to serve seven years in labor camp and three years in Siberian exile for refusing to diagnose Grigorenko as having the mental illness.

In recognition of his courage and commitment to ethical psychiatry, Gluzman was given the title of a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatry Association and the title of an Honorary Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Royal College of Psychiatrists
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is the main professional organisation of psychiatrists in the United Kingdom responsible for representing psychiatrists, psychiatric research and providing public information about mental health problems...

 in 1980.

In 2008, Semyon Gluzman was honored with the Geneva Prize for Human Rights in Psychiatry presented to him at the XIV Congress of the World Psychiatric Association
World Psychiatric Association
The World Psychiatric Association is an international umbrella organisation of psychiatric societies.-Objectives and goals:Originally created to produce world psychiatric congresses, it has evolved to hold regional meetings, to promote professional education and to set ethical, scientific and...

 in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 for exceptional courage and adherence to ideals of humanism, for renunciation of using psychiatry against political dissidents as well as for dissemination of ethical principles during reform of psychiatric service in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

.

See also

  • Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK