Sluggish schizophrenia

Sluggish schizophrenia or slow progressive schizophrenia (Russian:вялотеку́щая шизофрени́я, vyalotekushchaya shizofreniya) is a diagnostic category that describes a form of schizophrenia characterized by a slowly progressive course; it can be diagnosed even in a patient who shows no symptoms of schizophrenia or other psychosis, on the assumption that these symptoms will appear later. It was developed in the 1960s by Soviet psychiatrist Andrei Snezhnevsky and his colleagues, and was used exclusively in the USSR and several Eastern Bloc countries, until the fall of Communism starting in 1989. The diagnosis has long been discredeted in the West because of its scietific unadequacy and its use as a means of confining dissenters. It has never been used or recognized in the Western world, or by international organizations such as the World Health Organization. It is considered a prime example of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.