Ect

It's not torture to perform an amputation when it is deemed necessary to save the individual in the absence of a better alternative. ECT might well be primitive and even unscientific but it is still used sometimes because it is found to work for some conditions where nothing else is known to, sadly.

Basically I agree with you that it's a horrible thing, but that doesn't mean it's always used as torture or that there are more effective treatments for some rare cases.

Although from this thread it's starting to sound rather more widely used than I realised.

really, how is ect not a non-surgical lobotomy?
tormenting patients in the mental 'health' system is well institutionalised, even to the point of denying troublesome schizophrenics/psychotic people cigarettes to the point they freak out & can be restrained/isolated. my experience of visiting units all over london is that they are usually over 90% minority people, the vast majority black males.

& this, on the question of endemic racism in the nhs:

UNISON survey of 2,000 black and ethnic minority NHS staff 12/09/2007

69% had suffered from racism at work
83% of those who had experienced racism had suffered verbal attacks
9% had suffered physical attack
61% of racist incidents were from patients
39% were from managers, and
24% from members of the public.

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that's more or less correct, although even an icepick lobotomy would probably be more discriminating in terms of which tissues it destroys

there are probably lots of people who would be surprised to know that this still be used

the system is fairly obscure i suppose, i was surprised to see the incarceration rates for blacks were that high (assuming two or three times larger than average maybe)

ECT has been controversial since its invention 70 years ago, indeed still remains the most controversial practice within conventional psychiatry, and I'm assuming this is the reason Baboon2004 posted on the topic here: because of the inherent and continuing ambiguity and skepticism concerning the nature and the effectiveness of the practice (Of course, many other areas of somatic and clinical psychiatric practice are also controversial, including in fact, its entire - dubious - methodology [ of simply treating symptoms - inconsistently applying somatic 'solutions' to behavioural and social problems - and invariably ignoring the underlying causes of mental distress]. For example, psychologist John Breeding maintains that so-called psychiatric illness is the product of unresolved psychic conflict, further delineating (in "The Necessity of Madness: Explaining How Psychiatry Is a Clinical Construct and Madness Is a Metaphor") what he regards as the psychological effects of ECT, particularly:

1) Suppression of emerging distress material
2) Suppression of ability to heal by emotional release;
3) Creation of emotional distress, including deep feelings of terror and powerlessness;
4) Promotion of human beings in the roles of victims and passive dependents of medical professionals;
5) Confirmation of patients' belief that there is something really wrong with them (shame).

And the very latest research on the adverse effects of ECT further confirm long-standing suspicions. Dr. Harold A. Sackeim, an American psychologist and former proponent of ECT, chief of the department of biological psychiatry at New York State Psychiatric Institute and professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, and co-author of more than 200 publications relating to ECT, has recently reversed radically his position on such therapy by publishing, in the Nature journal, earlier this year study results in Neuropsychopharmacology which followed 250 ECT patients in New York City hospitals. The study found that bilateral ECT (the most commonly used) does indeed cause permanent amnesia, as patients have long claimed, and results in mental impairment, especially among women and elderly patients. Here's the Abstract summarizing the findings of that study:


What's totally surprising - actually shocking [pun intended] - is that the above study provides the first comprehensive evidence based on a large and statistically significant prospective sample of ECT 'patients' that adverse cognitive effects are evident and furthermore can persist for an extended period, and that they fundamentally characterize routine treatment with ECT in institutionalized community settings.

Sufi said:

... my experience of visiting units all over london is that they are usually over 90% minority people, the vast majority black males.

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Yes, and what is startling is that the received psychiatric wisdom - and imagined practice - is that ECT is primarily performed on 'wealthy' patients and rarely on members of ethnic minorities or the economically impoverished. For instance, the Wiki entry on ECT [an incoherent mess] states that "About seventy percent of ECT patients are women. This is largely, but not entirely, due to the fact that women are more likely to receive treatment for depression. Older and more affluent patients are also more likely to receive ECT. The use of ECT treatment is "markedly reduced for ethnic minorities."" So yes, racism, sexism, and classism are alive and well within the psychiatric profession.

the full nice guidelines in case you haven't seen them

Obviously I don't know baboon2004's particular situation and I more than fully understand all of the criticisms of ECT (massive understatement), but again I would like to reiterate for the sake of balance that there are cases where this treatment is recommended that have nothing to do with racism, sexism, classism, or institutional torture. Also it should be realised that mental illness does not always have a psychological basis that can be treated with 'therapy'.

New experimental variations on ECT:

"For some, the experimental therapies have had astonishing results: Patients with Tourette syndrome abruptly stop having tics, and depressed people snap back to life. Despite these promising results, doctors admit that much of what works—and what doesn't, and why—is still a mystery. They warn that these treatments are not cures, that they are very experimental, and that the long-term side effects are still unknown. But the patients who end up at the brain-stimulation lab are often willing guinea pigs, impelled there by the mystery of their illness—the causes of most psychiatric disorders are still poorly understood—and the desperate desire to fix their malfunctioning brains."