Upcoming ECT Legislation Needs to Be Revised

A bill raised in the Connecticut legislature, H.B. No. 6837, would change state law concerning shock therapy (ECT or “electroconvulsive therapy”). It would extend the duration of probate court orders authorizing ECT without a patient’s informed consent, from the current maximum of 45 days to 90 days. The bill would also increase the maximum duration of patients’ written consent from 30 days to 90 days.

Proponents of this bill have argued that elongating these durations will benefit patients with severe conditions who are unable to receive court orders and adequate treatment within the shorter timeframes, such as unresponsive catatonia or conditions that require long-term ECT.  However, arguments and concerns were voiced about the safety and efficacy of ECT, the adequacy of information provided to patients for informed consent, the potential for misuse, and the risks of continuing ECT when it may not be effective within the initial 45-day period.

The following written testimony does not outright oppose the legislation but describes the inappropriate use of ECT and its harmful effects. I hope that if the bill moves forward it will be rewritten to enhance protections for patients who express that they don’t want ECT.

***

Dear Sen. Anwar, Rep. McCarthy Vahey, and distinguished members of the Connecticut Public Health Committee:

I am sharing the following information related to H.B. 6837, An act extending the authorization of shock therapy by a patient’s written consent or probate court order. Please note that two years ago, I provided lengthy written testimony on a very similar bill, Raised S.B. No. 898, which was copied in a Web article for the Website Mad in America (C. J. Dubey, 2023).

I am a 41-year-old resident of Newington since 2010, though I grew up in Middletown. I am disabled and unemployed, but I have two college degrees (biotechnology, English, and philosophy). I also am involved in several activist and support groups online. About twenty years ago in 2005, I was 22 years old and in severe distress. I was a very shy, socially anxious, and moody adolescent, but I had become a high-functioning, excellent college student. I had just graduated with a bachelor degree in English and philosophy from the University of Hartford, magna cum laude, with several awards. Still, I had employment issues and was dealing with emotional insensitivity and some verbal abuse from family members. I had also recently stopped taking the antidepressant paroxetine (brand name Paxil).

I made a few significant suicide attempts, broke my feet and legs, fractured my spine, and was hospitalized at San Francisco General Hospital and then Hartford Hospital. Shortly afterward, I voluntarily entered Hartford Hospital’s psychiatric facility The Institute of Living (IOL) and I was forced by probate court order to have “electroconvulsive therapy” or ECT (the common modern form of shock therapy) against my will.

ECT is a psychiatric treatment for clinical depression and other mental health conditions in which electrical impulses are passed through a person’s brain to cause brief seizures (Egan, 2018).

Although ECT is portrayed positively by the majority of research articles, there are also many negative accounts of it (BBC, 2021a, 2021b; Comiskey, 2018; Dow, 2018; Doyle, 2022; C. Dubey, 2018; Egan, 2018; Ejaredar & Hagen, 2014; Farnsworth, 2016; Grant, 2006; Greer, 2016; Halle & Nelson, 2019; Harris, 2023; Larkin, 2022; Life After ECT Inc., 2025; Murphy, 2021; Neugebauer, 2024; Oppenheim, 2022; Oprison, 2021; Roche, 2016; Rogers, 2021; Simonson, 2020; Singh, 2016; Smith, 2008; Stence & Stence, 2022; Tenney, 2016).

ECT is still controversial (Alibhai, 2022; Archer et al., 2017; Armstrong, 2016; BBC, 2021a, 2021b; Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, 2017; Comiskey, 2018; Dobuzinskis, 2023; Dow, 2018; Doyle, 2022; Easton, 2020; Egan, 2018; Farnsworth, 2016; González-Pando et al., 2021; Greer, 2016; Guido, 2024; Halle & Nelson, 2019; Hancock, 2019; Harris, 2023; Human Rights Watch, 2014; Johnstone & Cunliffe, 2020; Johnstone & Read, 2021; Leroy et al., 2018; Life After ECT Inc., 2025; MindFreedom International, 2016; Murphy, 2021; Ogles, 2023; Oppenheim, 2022; Oprison, 2021; Read, 2022; Read et al., 2019, 2022, 2023; Read, Hancock, et al., 2021; Read, Irving, et al., 2021; Read & Harrop, 2022; Read & Moncrieff, 2022; Reisner, 2003; Roche, 2016; Rogers, 2021; Schwartzkopff, 2020; Simonson, 2020; Singh, 2016; Sweetmore, 2022; Teixeira, 2020).

In recent years, more lawsuits have been made by patients alleging injuries from ECT (Appelbaum, 2024; Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, 2018, 2022; Greer, 2016; Rogers, 2021; Simonson, 2020; Wisner Baum, 2023a, 2023b). One lawsuit from about 5-6 years ago was by a man forced to undergo ECT in Connecticut and the case was featured in Reason magazine (Simonson, 2020). A judge recognized the liberty interests of the case and sustained the patient’s appeal to halt any future shock treatments during the 45-day treatment window. Gina Teixeira, the male patient’s attorney with the Connecticut Legal Rights Project, commented that a female client’s health had improved after involuntary ECT was halted because of a stay of the court order, contradicting how the hospital said that “without shock she deteriorates.” I have heard of many cases of psychiatric professionals describing an ECT patient as having gotten better after treatment, even though the patient describes having gotten worse because of the ECT.

My personal experience of being forced to have ECT was not a positive experience at all. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. An abridged account of my experience is on Mental Health Today (C. Dubey, 2018). I felt deceived, violated, and abused. When I was honest with my psychologist about how violated I felt by the forced ECT, I was ignored. So, I lied about its effects in order to convince the doctors to stop doing it and that’s how I was released from the Institute of Living.

It feels like I’ve been living in a surreal nightmare since then, for having lived through all that, becoming permanently disabled, what I’ve learned since then about the flaws of psychiatry and mental healthcare, and now knowing that many other people are still living through similar harrowing experiences every year and that little reform has been made.

For about ten years, I’ve been following critically-minded mental health professionals and researchers on social media, reading and observing articles, research, discussions, and debates. For at least the same time, I’ve also been a member of various online support groups for people who’ve had terrible experiences with mental healthcare, who sometimes identify with the terms psychiatric survivors (International Mental Health Collaborating Network, 2025), ECT survivors, ex-patients, anti-psychiatry, critical psychiatry, Prescribed Harm, iatrogenic harm, and Mad Pride. I’ve learned so much, and my perspectives on the world have changed so much.

I have heard from hundreds of patients and former patients with experiences similar to mine, both with ECT and other psychiatric treatments.

A common series of events in our shared experiences is this:

(1) Misdiagnosis or flawed mental health diagnosis. (Psychiatric pathologization of relatively benign personality differences, undiagnosed physical health conditions, or mild to moderate responses to trauma or adverse experiences.)

(2) Treatment with psychiatric drugs.

(3) Symptoms worsen partly because of adverse effects from the drugs or withdrawal effects after trying to discontinue them.

(4) Worsening symptoms get misinterpreted as relapse or new mental illness.

(5) Prescribed higher dosages or go through prescribing cascade (more drugs tried) (Richmond, 2024), and symptoms continue to worsen.

(6) Get labeled as “treatment-resistant.”

(7) Then are recommended to undergo a more invasive treatment like ECT.

(8) Have ECT or other more intense treatment.

(9) Acquire new long-term health issues such as memory loss, cognitive impairment, trouble concentrating, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and/or physical health issues.

(10) Often have reduced ability to maintain employment, or become unable to work. Prolonged adverse effects may also impair social relationships, basic living activities, and hobbies.

(9) Denial by medical professionals that their treatments caused any major harm and told your symptoms worsened because of your mental illness, even if your original symptoms or experiences were mild or moderate.

(10) May have psychological trauma of living through all that. Then many people want to get away from psychiatry and traditional mental healthcare.

I now understand that antidepressant withdrawal syndrome can be severe, can cause suicidality, and is often mistaken for relapse of underlying or prior mental illness (M. A. Horowitz, 2021; M. A. Horowitz & Davies, 2024; M. A. Horowitz & Taylor, 2019, 2022; M. Horowitz & Institute of Living, 2024). This is especially important to consider when a patient is labeled as “treatment-resistant” because their symptoms worsened after tapering or stopping an antidepressant, which may lead to them being referred for ECT. I am certain that this is what happened to me at the age of 22 back in 2005 when I became suicidal only months after abruptly stopping paroxetine. I have read many lay and peer-reviewed journal articles and watched some clinical training webinars about these issues, alongside medical professionals. Many clinicians lack training to recognize antidepressant withdrawal symptoms, although research is growing, and awareness and training are spreading (James Cook University, 2024). Ironically, one prominent researcher, Australian-British trainee psychiatrist Mark Horowitz gave an excellent presentation on antidepressant withdrawal effects and safe deprescribing for the Institute of Living’s Grand Rounds last May (M. Horowitz & Institute of Living, 2024). I highly recommend it to all mental health patients and professionals.

Regarding ECT, though I’m not a medical professional, I’ve communicated with many people who’ve had terrible experiences with it, and I’ve read much of the medical literature about it. Positive experiences are described copiously and negative experiences are downplayed, minimized, ignored, and sometimes misinterpreted by other people as positive. A recent narrative research article by a trainee British clinical psychologist does a good job of describing common themes among negative experiences, through interviews with seven people who had ECT in the UK within the past twenty years (Shipwright & Murphy, 2024). The authors cited my one peer-reviewed research article about ECT (C. J. Dubey, 2017).

In addition to issues with the validity of psychiatric diagnosis (Cooper, 2014; Cosgrove, 2024; Hengartner & Lehmann, 2017; Khoury et al., 2014; Schroder et al., 2022; Superior Health Council, 2019) and adverse effects of medications being misinterpreted, I also believe that in many cases not all potentially beneficial treatments are explored, because of limitations of clinicians’ knowledge. Therefore, I have authored and registered a preprint of a short opinion/research article suggesting further research into some similar treatments that might be potential alternatives with less intense side effects, already supported by preliminary studies (C. J. Dubey, 2024). I am still trying to get it published in a journal.

An online support group I’ve been in for at least ten years contains more than 800 people who identify as ECT survivors. People who’ve described their damaging experiences with ECT include people from all walks of life, including traumatized and abused people, creative young people, gifted students, teachers, professors, wealthy business owners, an air traffic controller for the U.S. Air Force, nurses, lawyers, and even doctors (Doyle, 2022; Harris, 2023; Murphy, 2021). In this support group, there have been at least three people who died by suicide after expressing significant distress related to their adverse effects, and they had reported not being taken seriously by doctors or family members.

Being forced to have ECT was a traumatic, horrific experience. It radically changed my worldview. But it gave me more reasons to hate psychiatry, to hate the world, and to hate being alive. I often feel that I’d rather die than have ECT again. And I know I’m not alone in feeling that way.

Sincerely,

Christopher James Dubey
Psychiatric survivor

 

References

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