Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia

Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia was a category of schizophrenia diagnosed by psychiatrists in the Soviet Union. At the time, Western psychiatry recognized only four types of schizophrenia: Catatonic, hebephrenic, paranoid, and simple. The diagnostic criteria for this fifth category were so vague that it could be applied to virtually any person not suffering from mental function impairment and having interests beyond survival needs. The diagnosis was sometimes applied to dissidents who were not in fact mentally ill, so that they could be forcibly hospitalized in mental institutions and subjected to treatments including powerful anti-depressants and electroconvulsive therapy.

The existence of this diagnosis has led to questions on the part of supporters of anti-psychiatry about the existence of schizophrenia in general, about whether it is diagnosed properly, and about political misuses of the schizophrenia diagnosis in the West.