New Review Highlights Dangers of Electroconvulsive Therapy
Data shows that over a third of users experience permanent memory loss and that approximately half report not receiving adequate information about the risks from their doctors.
May 16, 2015: 25 Shock Treatment Protests in 9 Countries! What Now?
On May 16, our human rights movement carried out 25 protests against shock treatment in 9 countries. It was very exciting to see both old hands and new leaders pulling together to make this happen. Now we can take advantage of this momentum to organize an ongoing structure that can carry out more actions like this and strengthen our movement. Congratulations to us!
My Response to the FDA’s ECT Rule Change
I lived through forced ECT from 2005-2006 at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. My experience with ECT was the impetus for me to become involved in the antipsychiatry and Mad Pride movements, although I am not entirely opposed to voluntary mental health treatment. The following is the comment I submitted to the FDA on its proposal to down-classify the ECT shock device.
ECT Survivors Take On the FDA
In December, the FDA proposed down-classifying the device used in electroshock treatment (ECT), which would loosen regulations and potentially make ECT more widely available...
ECT: Safe and Effective for Agitation and Aggression in Cases of Dementia?
It is often not appreciated by the individuals receiving electrically induced convulsions that any gains they receive from the procedure will almost certainly be short-lived, and that the "treatment" will need to be repeated more or less indefinitely at intervals of about a month. Case studies can be helpful and informative, but they tell us little or nothing on the general questions of safety and efficacy.
The Curious Case of over 50 Consecutive ECTs in Melbourne
Over the past few weeks I have been witness to, and increasingly involved in trying to stop one of the most extreme examples of psychiatric brutality I have encountered in my 40 years in this field. And I have encountered quite a few. I suggest you sit down before watching and reading. This is not your usual, run-of-the-mill psychiatric abuse story.
Creatively Managing Voice-Hearing Through Spiritual Writing
I am a psychiatric survivor of over thirty-six years. Since my nervous breakdown in 1978, I have undergone multitudinous experiences ranging from the subtly humiliating to the horrifically debilitating at the hands of incompetent psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists who, in the name of medicine, did more harm than good.
The History of Brainwashing is a Red Flag for Technotherapy
From Aeon: In the 1950s, psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron developed a treatment called psychic driving, which involved removing distressing memories and pathological behaviors through an...
Lou Reed: That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Radicalize Us
Lou Reedâs âKill Your Sons,â about his ECT as a 17-year-old, gives voice to an event that majorly radicalized him to distrust authorities. Louâs talents enabled his rage over his ECT to be transformed into the kind of art that deeply touched societyâs outcasts and victims of illegitimate authority. But such trauma often only destroys.
“Dad, You Were Right”: I Got Better When I Stopped Treatment
Through all the years that I was a mental patient, my parents were excellent advocates who constantly questioned what the docs were doing, even though my own faith in psychiatry was unwavering.... Amazingly, what cured me was not some type of âtreatment,â but getting away from drugs and therapy.
Transcranial Electrical Stimulation Canât Directly Alter Brain Patterns, Researchers Find
Due to the thickness of the scalp and skull, transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) is incapable of targeting networks of neurons in the brain.
The Answers in the Attic: A Mother-Daughter Story of Overmedication and Recovery
In 1959, my mother suffered what people referred to as a nervous breakdown after my sisterâs birth. I puzzled over why Mom never recovered, until I found Dadâs collection of medical records in my sisterâs attic. How could anyone give a nursing mother with three small children so many drugs in such a short period of time?
Feral Psychiatry: The Case of Garth Daniels
Garth Daniels, a 39-year-old Melbourne man, has been shackled for 110 days and forced to undergo ECT 94 times at three times a week against his will. Last year, his family asked me to provide a second opinion on Garthâs case. As predicted, my recommendations against continued ECT were quickly dismissed by the hospital. There are critically important issues at stake in this case.
New Hope for Depression
In this piece for TIME, Mandy Oaklander provides a comprehensive review of the current status of and potential future directions for the depression treatment industry. The...
Against the Odds: âUnimproved Schizophrenicâ to Yale PhD
Forty years after I had first been admitted to the hospital, I was ready to confront my past. So, I sent for my hospital records, and I read them. As an experienced clinician, I recognized immediately what the doctors hadnât been able to see in 1960: my problem wasnât âschizophreniaâ but PTSD, connected with incest.
Electroshock Causes More Harm Than Good
For almost two decades I was a victim of what I now am aware was psychiatric torture. I believe because I am a woman, it was easier to become a psychiatric victim and to be denied my right to be human. I got my first bolt of electricity just three days after childbirth on the thirtieth of January 1976. I continued to be electrocuted for the month of February until the middle of March, twelve more times while simultaneously being drugged into oblivion.
Shock Class Action â Case Update
In September of 2017, DK Law Group, LLP filed a Class Action Complaint against the manufacturers of ECT shock devices, alleging that they caused injury to patients by withholding from the FDA data relating to serious iatrogenic brain injuries resulting from ECT. The following developments have taken place since then.
Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy Without Patient’s Consent Rises
From The Irish News: Although the use of ECT has been steadily decreasing internationally, the use of ECT in Northern Ireland has significantly increased over...
âCourt Orders Electroconvulsive Therapy for Girl with Depressionâ
The Irish Times reports that a judge has ordered ECT for a 16-year-old with depression and an eating disorder. The doctor asked the court...
âQuestions Over Safety of Whole Body Electrical Stimulationâ
"It's time to regulate the use of whole body electrical stimulation, argue doctors in The BMJ today, after treating several people for muscle damage at their...
“Substantial” Relapse After ECT, With or Without Medication
The Journal of ECT, looking at the question of whether antidepressant medications at the start of ECT reduced post-ECT relapse in a sample of...
Speaking Out Against Electric Shocks
Essentially what Choy et al are seeking in their editorial is the total suppression of information concerning the harmful and often permanent effects of high voltage electric shocks to the brain, thus implying that the very large number of individuals who report more extensive and persistent damage are not worth listening to.
Celia Brown: Surviving Psychiatry
Peer support pioneer and MindFreedom board president Celia Brown discusses what it means to be a 'survivor of psychiatry' and the importance of human connection, and human rights in mental healthcare.
âFDA Proposes Reclassifying ECT Devicesâ
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is attempting to reclassify the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) device for use in treating severe depression (MDE) or bipolar âdisorderâ (BPD). The device is currently a class III device and the proposal is to make it a class II device.
âAhaâ Moments: In the World of Electroshock
A fictional shock survivor was the narrator of my novel, but her memory loss was such that she did not know huge sections of the story she was trying to tell. In finding solutions to such problems, I came to take in not only the extent of the injury but the sheer ingenuity of the daily work that shock survivors have to do to manage and inject meaning back into their lives.
