Interview with William Carpenter, M.D., 2021

Scope and content:

In the interview Dr. Carpenter discusses his career, his involvement in the 1989 US State Department psychiatric delegation to the USSR, the main goals of the mission, various aspects of the implementation in great detail, the diagnostic aspects of the study, interview instruments and methodology, the Soviet mental health care system and its shortcomings, the conclusions made by Dr. Carpenter's sub-team, the impact the American visit made to the interviewed individuals an mental health in the region.

Dr. Carpenter also discusses the United States - Great Britain cross-national study of schizophrenia conducted in the 1960s and 70s and its pertinency to the 1989 U.S. State Department psychiatric investigative mission to the U.S.S.R. He also talks about the broad diagnostic criteria for sluggish schizophrenia and how much contributed to the missuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.

Olena Protsenko, a Post-doctoral Research Associate in Psychiatry and Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, conducted this interview remotely over the Zoom application.

Language:
English
Biographical / historical:

Dr. William Carpenter was leader of team #2 of the 1989 American investigative scientific mission to the Soviet Union. He is Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and former Director of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.

Access and use

Location of collection:
University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400110
170 McCormick Rd
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Special Collections Public Services & Reference Staff
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Restrictions:

Dr. William Carpenter did not request any additional restrictions on access to this interview beyond those that the University of Virginia has made for all the oral histories from the Soviet Psychiatry Oral History Project (2021-2022).

Parent restrictions:
The interviews with the former Soviet patients and the original 1989 recording are restricted and special permissions apply.
Parent terms of access:
The Arthur J. Morris Law Library does not grant researchers permission to publish copies of any of the materials in this collection.

Online content