ECT Said to Erase Traumatic Memories

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Research from the Netherlands finds that disturbing memories can be reduced or eliminated by well-timed bursts of electroconvulsive therapy.  Relying on a theory that re-stimulating memories renders them vulnerable to disruption before being “re-consolidated” in long-term memory, the researchers tested subjects’ memories after being asked to recall disturbing stories and then administered ECT.  The research was reported in the journal Nature.

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Of further interest:
Unwanted Memories Erased in Electroconvulsive Therapy Experiment (Wall Street Journal)
Erasing unwanted memories may now be possible (Fox News)

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

14 COMMENTS

  1. effexor xr was designed to “erase memories”.

    HOW LAZY OF YOU, Humanity!! LAZY!

    Traumatic events need to be fully PROCESSED, not neglected or KILLED. To be disturbed is because of the NEGLECT, the LACK OF processing, where the WOUND JUST LINGERS in the never ending sick cyclical loop (“crazy”).

    HOW LAZY OF YOU. Incompetent and cowardly.

    Every time I told and talked about certain traumas, I was ALWAYS met with IGNORANCE & INCOMPETENCE. Even sick, sadistic PUNISHMENT for even having these “problems” to begin with! Blame and scapegoat!

    You want to KILL memory, which is to kill the mind and kill the brain, simply because of YOUR INCOMPETENCE.

    Life is full of terror and horror and the most harrowing, sick evil things that people do to each other. You can’t face it. You can’t handle it. You can only ignore it, deny it, cover it up, bury it or try to kill it. LAZY COWARDS!

    Some HORROR stories are too overwhelming to handle or deal with ALONE so we go looking for this “help”. The “help” can be WORSE THAN THE ORIGINAL TRAUMAS.

    Is it not clear to see that this is p-p-p-provoking me?

    effexor xr – destroyed my memory, gave me brain zaps and finally some neuroleptic seizure.

    HELL YOU!

    You MANGLED & DESTROYED MY BRAIN & MIND.

    NOTHING erases traumatic memories. You can only DESTROY THE BRAIN & MIND.

    “the researchers tested subjects’ memories after being asked to recall disturbing stories and then administered ECT.”

    MURDER!

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  2. ect is working by destroing the brain, disabling it just like the antipsychotic drugs do.So there is an apparent ”improvement”
    in the behavior and mood of the ”patient” because it renders that person completly incapable of thought, emotion and higher brain function.And rather than helping the
    person deal with and digest the harsh realities of his predicament; this excrement called treatment robs him of any chance at gaining independence and living a worthy life.

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    • “this excrement called treatment robs him of any chance at gaining independence and living a worthy life.”

      Keyword: LIVING

      Life is for the living! The rest of us are committed to SUFFERING and SERVICE. Some, like me, we are the LIVING DEAD.

      What constitutes living will probably be very different answers from everybody. But think of Justina: who can say she’s LIVING? I can’t.

      Nobody LIVES in a hospital. Nobody LIVES in a jail or prison. At that point, the person is DRIVEN INSIDE where THERE becomes the place to “live”.

      But when these people DESTROY THE INSIDE, we are trapped alive in a living HELL where we only SUFFER. My inside is an inescapable HELL. I scream, cry and beg unending.

      I USED TO have inner-light. I never needed to “seek enlightenment” because I always HAD inner-light (and mental elevation, higher mental dimensions). When my inner-light was destroyed, now is dead and BLACKER THAN BLACK, the response from the spiritual world was that I was going through a “dark night of the soul”.

      I do not agree with them and I do not believe that.

      I think my BRAIN has suffered and endured massive, catastrophic harm and damage. BRAIN DAMAGE. People should see me twitch and spasm and convulse! I become paralyzed with transfixed starting and my body so rigid that I feel like a STATUE. How the HELL is this any sort of improvement? Tardive dyskinesia!

      What DOES happen on the inside of people when they have such a strong urge to kill themselves (or others) after taking these SICK PSYCH DRUGS?

      I’m SOUL PUKING again. My INSIDES come pouring out. No privacy for me. No boundaries. DESTROYED LONG, LONG AGO.

      Such a tragedy and often, I beg for my own death and I have done so IN PUBLIC.

      But free-will “euthanasia” is NOT ALLOWED.

      I have the worst, most consequential “justified” hatred, anger and intolerance of the EXTREMELY DECEPTIVE “house of help”.

      It is more like the HOUSE OF HELL, damn YOU psychiatry. I LOATHE you forever and ever more. I am the ONLY person I know who calls YOU the ANTICHRIST.

      ect is Hell horror itself.

      MY proper place is IN THE GROUND, the dirt that I’m craving. Except, my body must be BURNED for all the disease in my soul!

      Face the thing that should not be…
      http://youtu.be/2pnS_7YsYzM

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  3. I’ve had forced electro-shock -torture and yes there could be a use for it that could save millions of lives. If we could get all the psychiatrists together in one place by sending them a letter promising them a bonus from various branches of the pharmaceutical cartel if they arrived for a super conference unveiling new and improved torture techniques that they could use in their own practice that would generate ever increasing cash flow for themselves.There and then the psychiatrists themselves could be force electro-shocked until they forgot they were psychiatrists. I’m sure enough members of their own phony boloney profession would after having their palms properly greased be glad to perform the most necessary procedures upon their highly esteemed colleagues. I know there are other issues to be worked out with this plan but you can’t expect me to figure out everything by myself. In any case it would be a good start.

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  4. This is total and complete bull feces. I know someone who underwent numerous bouts of ect and it did absolutely nothing to “erase” the traumatic events from the person’s memory.

    This is nothing but absurd propaganda of the worst kind. Nothing but large piles of bull feces.

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  5. “The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.”

    This is wonderful! It’s how to make zombie workers for the gulag – everyone lines up for 30 min of ECT once a week. ECT office is right beside the crematorium.
    ..
    Whistle while you work comrades, we live in forever sunshine! Well that is, those who can remember what whistling is…

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  6. Further to the Fox News item by Keith Ablow – (Ablow was one of the psychiatrists featured on the Dr.OZ ECT commercial.) Even though he is pro-ECT, he writes: “If we erase adversity – even trauma – from the minds of those who object to it, won’t we also be erasing the potential for great leaders who have overcome trauma the old fashioned way? If we suggest that shocking people out of their anxiety and sadness is the right way to “get over it,” won’t we be belittling the concept of human empathy, through which we commiserate with the suffering of others?”

    He goes on to say: “Psychiatrists and spiritual thinkers like the late M. Scott Peck warned that seeking to avoid all adversity is the road to weakness and to a willingness to let evil people and ideas overcome us.”

    Scott Peck wrote a book called ‘People of the Lie’ – I can’t think of a better description for psychiatry.

    Further to Fred Abbe’s comment (above) that psychiatrists themselves could be force electro-shocked until they forget they were psychiatrists, I would like to add that the researchers/experimenters of this new study should be shocked until they forget they ever came up with this absurd idea.

    Sad – so much suffering at the hands of those who forgot they once took an oath to ‘do no harm.’

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  7. I used to see a humorous short video on lobotomy – everyone in the neighborhood getting a lobotomy.
    Anyone know what the name of the short is – maybe there is a copy on youtube?

    If you haven’t seen it it is a great sarcastic satire. The lobotomy truck comes round the neighborhood like an ice-cream truck and there is a happy “lobotomy song”

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  8. What this article accomplishes is to distract the reader from the reality that Electroshock is brain damage. If that alone is not disturbing enough, the suggestion there is that forgetting is an appropriate way of dealing with life events, as if that were even possible. My question is this; are they recommending that everyone else who was involved in these undesirable memories must also be zapped? This is pure science fiction and it scares the hell out of me.

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