Towards Revisiting the Discourse on Soviet (and Post-Soviet) Repressive Psychiatry

Abstract This review essay is prompted by Rustam Alexander’s monograph Gay Lives and ‘Aversion Therapy’ in Brezhnev’s Russia, 1964–1982 , which explores the under-researched history of gay lives and conversion therapy practices in the USSR . The essay critically interrogates the discourse surrounding Soviet repressive psychiatry ( karatel’naiia psikhiatriia ), highlighting its exclusionary narrative toward LGBTIQ + individuals. Drawing on Alexander’s exploration of the conversion therapy practice of the Soviet psychiatrist Yan Goland, who employed suggestive methods to attempt to alter sexual orientation, the article places Goland’s practice within broader Soviet medical history and post-Soviet political psychiatry. The essay further underscores the relevance of this history in contemporary Russia, where LGBTIQ + individuals continue to face medicalization and repression, echoing past practices. It concludes by calling for the incorporation of queer and critical psychiatry perspectives into the discourse on psychiatric abuse in Russia.