AFS Cinema
Shocked at Electroshock
RECEIVED Tue., July 25, 2006
Dear Editor,
ECT or electroshock therapy has never fallen out of favor with the psychiatric community [“Naked City,” News, July 7]. It fell out of favor with the public and was always despised by the majority of shock survivors. Any psychiatric survivor group in the world you can find is against this form of treatment. In China, Falon Gong practitioners are electroshocked to force them to renounce their beliefs. A Cuban expatriate complained of politically motivated electroshock torture while the offending doctor swore it was treatment. Turkey will probably not be let into the EU for all of the electroshock they were doing on the mentally ill without anesthesia as punishment. I find most people I talk to about this cannot believe that it still goes on. "They don't do that anymore do they?" is a common response. Some facts that I find interesting are that, before some brainiac thought to drug the shock patient, after a victim was shocked they would flop around and commonly break bones. Also a gel is applied so that the amount of electricity does not burn the temples of the head. There is a review of the amount of voltage used on the Web that explains that the weakest machine at the lowest setting would kill someone if they ran the current through a person's chest. It's really an extreme way to treat a human being. We need to allow all of our citizens a chance to recover without brain damage. I also feel that drug-treatment failures and the potential lawsuits can be swept under the rug with shock therapy. Everyone I have interviewed that received shock spent years recovering. The two-year limit on lawsuits is usually up by then. Shock is a great way to prevent a lawsuit and hide treatment failures.
ECT or electroshock therapy has never fallen out of favor with the psychiatric community [“Naked City,” News, July 7]. It fell out of favor with the public and was always despised by the majority of shock survivors. Any psychiatric survivor group in the world you can find is against this form of treatment. In China, Falon Gong practitioners are electroshocked to force them to renounce their beliefs. A Cuban expatriate complained of politically motivated electroshock torture while the offending doctor swore it was treatment. Turkey will probably not be let into the EU for all of the electroshock they were doing on the mentally ill without anesthesia as punishment. I find most people I talk to about this cannot believe that it still goes on. "They don't do that anymore do they?" is a common response. Some facts that I find interesting are that, before some brainiac thought to drug the shock patient, after a victim was shocked they would flop around and commonly break bones. Also a gel is applied so that the amount of electricity does not burn the temples of the head. There is a review of the amount of voltage used on the Web that explains that the weakest machine at the lowest setting would kill someone if they ran the current through a person's chest. It's really an extreme way to treat a human being. We need to allow all of our citizens a chance to recover without brain damage. I also feel that drug-treatment failures and the potential lawsuits can be swept under the rug with shock therapy. Everyone I have interviewed that received shock spent years recovering. The two-year limit on lawsuits is usually up by then. Shock is a great way to prevent a lawsuit and hide treatment failures.
Jim Moore