ABSTRACT
In the years before the First World War, Grigorii Rasputin—whom history knows as the "mad monk," though he was neither mad nor a monk—was, after Nicholas and Alexandra, the most powerful person in Russia. Her relatives made repeated attempts to get her out, on the grounds that she had "got better," but the doctor in charge insisted that she continued to display symptoms of "psychological disturbance and exalted religiosity." In the East, where the right to property was never a fundamental value, the right to personal liberty never developed. Psychiatrists have always had, and continue to have, a veritable love affair with the practice of coercion—which they equate with compassion. Psychiatrists have always had, and continue to have, a veritable love affair with the practice of coercion—which they equate with, and peddle as, compassion; reciprocally, legislators, lawyers, and lay persons have had a love affair with submission to psychiatric coercion—which they equate with, and peddle as, care.
