Putin’s Tyranny Undermining Psychological Health of Russians More Broadly than Many Suspect, Archagov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 5 – Vladimir Putin’s increasingly tyrannical rule is undermining the psychological health of Russia’s population in ways far broader and more insidious than many suspect, that has a variety of often deadly real world consequences and that will be extremely difficult but fortunately not impossible to overcome, Aleksandr Archagov says.
    The Russian clinical psychologist says that Russians are increasingly alive to the ways in which Putin policies are producing PTSD among those most directly affected but that they are as yet less aware of the ways in which there is something similar among the broader population of those who are only witnesses directly or via the media (moscowtimes.ru/2024/11/05/vnimanie-tiraniya-vredit-psihicheskomu-zdorovyu-a146751).
    Psychological research shows, Archagov continues, that people who only observe or hear about tortures and other acts of violence are also affected by them and thus become “a hidden epidemic” that affects many few suspect are victims of tyranny and its reliance on violence of various kinds.
    But that is only one way in which Putin’s tyranny is undermining the psychological health of Russians, he says. The Kremlin leader has “in fact banned any collective actions besides those which the state itself initiatives” and thus promoted the social atomization of the population that in turn leads to alienation and even violence.  
    The Putin regime is also “normalizing violence” in the media, leading ever more Russians to conclude that violence is an appropriate response to anger and thus ensuring that there will be more of it, including abuse within and among social groups much like abuse within some families.
    All these things, plus the aggressive wars that tyrannies like Putin’s are inclined to engage in, mean that “’inner Putins’” are being created within more and more Russians, a psychological trigger that tells people who they should act “in order to survive in the world of the tyrant” and leads many to behave as miniature tyrants in their own spheres.
    “Unfortunately,” Archagov says, “tyranny like violence in the home  rarely stops without the interference of outside forces. But happily nothing makes this something that lasts forever;” and Russians can take steps to resist it, the first and most important being to recognize just what is happening as a result of Putin’s rule.