Repression Therapy

I read somewhere that the Soviets sometimes would have enemies of the
state committed to asylums for some kind of psychiatric disease:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_psychiatric_institutions#Psychiatric_internment_as_a_political_device

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union

It even goes on to this day:

   In modern Russia, human rights activists also face the threat of
   psychiatric diagnosis as a means of political repression.

Most convenient diagnosis was "sluggish schizophrenia":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggish_schizophrenia

        It was defined as a special form of the illness which
        supposedly affected only the person's social behavior, with no
        influence on other traits: "most frequently, ideas about a
        'struggle for truth and justice' are formed by personalities
        with a paranoid structure", according to Moscow Serbsky
        Institute professors.[1] The diagnostic criteria were vague
        enough to be applied to nearly anyone, as desired. The
        dissidents were forcibly hospitalized and subjected to
        treatments which included antipsychotic drugs and
        electroconvulsive therapy.

        ...

        The incidence of sluggish schizophrenia increased because,
        according to Snezhnevsky and his colleagues, patients with
        this diagnosis were capable of socially functioning almost
        normally.[8] Their symptoms could resemble those of a neurosis
        or paranoia.[8] Patients with paranoid symptoms retained
        insight into their condition, but overestimated their
        significance and had grandiose ideas of reforming society.[8]
        Sluggish schizophrenia could have such symptoms as "reform
        delusions", "perseverance" and "struggle for the truth".[8] As
        V.D. Stayzhkin reported, Snezhnevsky diagnosed a reform
        delusion in every case where a patient "develops a new
        principle of human knowledge, drafts an ideal of human
        happiness or other projects for the benefit of mankind".

Combined with the Stasi policy of undermining:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung

        By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt
        persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as
        arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was
        realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to
        be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their
        supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active
        resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the
        source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung
        was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies
        so that they would lose the will to continue any
        "inappropriate" activities.

        Tactics employed under zersetzung generally involved the
        disruption of the victim's private or family life. This often
        included breaking into homes and messing with the contents -
        moving furniture, altering the timing of an alarm, removing
        pictures from walls or replacing one variety of tea with
        another. Other practices included mysterious phone calls or
        unnecessary deliveries, even including sending a vibrator to a
        target's wife. Usually victims had no idea the Stasi were
        responsible. Many thought they were losing their minds, and
        mental breakdowns and suicide could result.

...one could virtually guarantee that the person would fall into the
trap diagnosis and that one could involuntarily commit them.

Anyway, despite all this, one thing I noticed amongst people inclined
to anti-authoritarianism, is that they often seem to resent (perhaps
due to absence), hate, or at least mistrust the authority figure from
their childhood.  This is usually, but not always, the father figure.

Anyway, here's an interesting modern take on this:

http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/