âLetâs Not Go Overboard About ECTâ
In an internet email discussion among a large group of supposedly enlightened mental health professionals, few came forward to outright condemn or ban ECT. One participant responded to my comments with, "It worries me how this debate gets so polarized." This refusal to say or to accept something polarizing is a hallmark of most so-called reformers in the field of mental health.
âHearing Voices: The People Who Say Talking Back is the Only Answerâ
Journalist Emma Reynolds profiles Amanda Waegeli, Ron Coleman, Nathan Grixli and Lyn Mahboub about their experiences coming to the Hearing Voices Network (HVN). HVN was established 10 years ago in Australia and provided a support group that encouraged people to listen to their voices rather than trying to block them out. The group now operates in 25 countries.
Stop Shock Now: Psychiatryâs War Against Women and the Elderly
As a movement strategy, electroshock must be clearly framed and understood as a blatant human rights violation â a profound and devastating crime against peopleâs health and lives. Here are three possible action proposals in our continuing struggle to abolish electroshock.
Shock Device Safe As Eyeglasses? 89 Days to Say No
We now have only 89 days to respond to Docket No. FDA-2014-N-1210. Tell the FDA no to the down-classification of shock devices. Tell the FDA exactly how subjective and damaging the terms âtreatment-resistantâ and ârequire rapid responseâ are, and how they fail as legitimate medical concepts. The known risks of electroshock should not be ignored because one has been psychiatrically labeled.
ECT Shock Treatment Class Action â Case Update April 2018
In March, 2018, the Court issued an Order denying class certification in the case filed against the manufacturers of ECT shock devices. Attorneys for the ECT victims strongly disagree with the Court's assessment, and have now petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to appeal the ruling denying class certification.
40 Days to Tell the #FDAStoptheShockDevice
Please join us in demanding that the FDA stop the shock device from being down-classified to a Class II device. We have until March 28th, 2016.
Protesting a Psychiatric Atrocity
On May 16, 2015, protests against electroconvulsive therapy or ECT will take place around the world. To support this educational campaign, I am releasing my newest Simple Truths about Psychiatry video which is titled âShock Treatment is Trauma.â Ted Chabasinski, an attorney, is an organizer of the protest. Ted recently talked about his personal experiences and the upcoming protests on my radio show, âThe Dr. Peter Breggin Hour.â We agreed that money and power is not the only motivation of shock doctors.  Many are taking out their violent impulses on their helpless victims.
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!
A Macabre Celebration:Â 80 Years of Convulsive ‘Therapy’
Electric shock "treatment" is no more effective than sham ECT, in which the client is prepared and anaesthetized, but not actually shocked. When one considers the pains to which real doctors go to protect their patients from seizures, I suggest that the deliberate induction of grand mal seizures, often involuntarily, constitutes neither "a remarkable discovery" nor a "remarkable medical advance," but rather aggravated assault by a person in a position of trust.
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.
NIMH to Host Live ECT Q&A on March 17th
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) will hold a live Facebook event on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) on Thursday, March 17, 2016 from 4-5 PM...
âPatients Unwilling to Consent to ECTâ
More than one-in-10Â forms authorising ECT received by the Mental Health Commission (MHC) between 2013 and 2015 reported that the patient was unwilling to consent...
Foxes Guarding the Henhouse: the Role of the Chief Psychiatrist
I do not wish to discuss an individual patient. I wish to discuss the conduct of the psychiatrists at Upton House, Dr Katz in particular, who have been responsible for the administering of over 50 ECTs consecutively to a patient, and have reportedly repeatedly restrained this patient to a bed, on one occasion for approximately 60 consecutive days.
What’s “Grand” About Electroshock and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?
The December 4 "grand rounds" at the Oregon Health and Science University consisted of a presentation on what they call "Interventional Psychiatry"âan interesting euphemism for Electroshock, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and the comeback street drug, Ketamine.
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...
âPsychiatric Shock Therapy, Long Controversial, may Face Fresh Restrictionsâ
For STAT, Judith Graham reports that regulators âare poised to enact new restrictions on psychiatryâs most controversial treatment, electroconvulsive therapy, which treats people with acute mental...
ECT Explained by a CET (Certified Engineering Technologist)
A scientific understanding of electricityâs effects on the human body has only been around since the last half of the 20th century. If this understanding of electric shock and electrical injury was had in the first part of the 20th century, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) would likely never have been accepted by modern western medicine.
Comments by Shock Survivors and Their Loved Ones
The #FDAStopTheShockDevice petition has received over 2,200 signatures and 800+ comments. A more thorough analysis of those comments is forthcoming, however, we wanted to offer a glimpse of what people shared. The sixth, seventh, and eighth most common words used in the comments submitted through the petition were "damage," "barbaric" and "torture." We must continue the fight to make sure that the FDA hears the people who will be adversely affected by the proposed rule if it becomes an order. There is still a small window of time for you to sign the petition and leave a comment to the FDA.
Psychiatry: We Need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Mental Health
My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didnât understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.
Little Lasting Benefit From ECT
The relapse rate after short-term ECT is high, according to a study in the Journal of ECT, "owing to resistance to medication in these...
The Effectiveness of Electroconvulsive Therapy
A literature review by John Read and Richard Bentall
SUMMARY
Aim â To review the literature on the efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy , with a particular...
Protesting ECT: A Moral/Existential Calling
ECT is a medical procedure. Correction: a procedure deemed medical. The point here is: despite the fact that it is administered in hospitals by people known as doctors, by any normal understanding of the term, it cannot justifiably be termed âmedical,â for such naming presupposes that something is medically wrong with the person and yet there is no proof whatever that such is the case with prospective ECT recipients.
Ode to Biological Psychiatry
Sometimes I get so sick of the lies of biological psychiatry that I must speak out. At these moments I find silence to be a kind of emotional death: a death of my spirit, a death of my critical faculties, a death of my courage. I speak out because I am alive and I wish to align with life.
âElectric Shock Therapy Led to Sunderland Patient Having Permanent Fitâ
Update: Elsie Tindle has sadly passed away after a forced electroshock treatment triggered an epileptic fit and permanent brain damage. The psychiatrist, Eugene van...
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.