One flew over the Alphane moon

Clans of the Alphane Moon is a very Dickian novel; someone who knows his work could read a paragraph or two from anywhere in the book and immediately know who wrote it.

The set-up is ingenious. A small, habitable moon was once the site of a Terran psychiatric hospital, but the hospital—and its patients—were abandoned years ago. They have survived, and formed clans, which the author introduces first only by abbreviations. The deps—depressives; the manses—manics; the pares—paranoids, and etc.

The Terrans want the moon back; it is part of a territory squabble between Earth and their former enemies, the Alphanes. They send a psychiatrist to evaluate the situation, with the idea that the former patients—now living on their own—will be re-hospitalized and treated, whether they like it or not.