SHOCK TREATMENT IS UNSCIENTIFIC, HAS THE HALLMARKS OF TORTURE AND SHOULD BE BANNED

Electroshock treatment, also known as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), has been dogged by conflict between the ECT psychiatrists who swear by it, and the patients and families of patients who say that their lives have been ruined by it.

[UKPRwire, Sun May 14 2006] Figures obtained from the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust under the Freedom of Information Act show that there were 2408 ECT administrations since 2004 alone, and so far this year the figure is a staggering 779. This is an extraordinary figure given that ECT is supposed to only be given as a treatment of “last resort.” ECT is banned in a number of countries including Holland and Italy. According to an international psychiatric watchdog, ECT is torturous and barbaric, and should be banned.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights says psychiatrists deceptively cloak shock treatment in medical legitimacy, the effects of which are horrific, and where the full ramifications are not explained to the patients or families.

CCHR spokesperson Chris Wrapson, said, “In spite of their sophisticated trappings of science, the brutality of ECT shows that psychiatry has not advanced beyond the cruelty and barbarism of its earliest treatments.

“It has all the marks of physical torture methods that might instead belong in the armoury of a KGB interrogator, rather than in the inventory of a ‘medical practitioner’,” said Wrapson.

Dr Lucy Johnstone, a Clinical Psychologist who researches patient’s view on ECT, says there is widespread evidence that ECT causes brain damage, a fact accepted by doctors and sometimes claimed to be the mechanism of ECT’s therapeutic action. Dr Johnstone has called for a ban on ECT.

The Mental Health Foundation in London refers to the ‘brain damage theory’ in respect of how it is thought ECT affects the patient. It says, “Shock damages the brain, causing memory loss and disorientation that creates an illusion that problems are gone, and euphoria, which is a frequently observed result of brain injury.”

A Royal College of Psychiatrists survey conducted on psychiatrists, psychotherapists and general practitioners confirmed memory loss as an effect of ECT. Of the 1,344 psychiatrists surveyed, 21% referred to ‘long-term side effects and risks of brain damage, memory loss [and] intellectual impairment.’ General practitioners reported that 34% of patients seen in the months after receiving ECT “were poor or worse.”

And in a survey of ECT patients carried out by the UK Advocacy Network, 73% reported memory loss and 50% said that the ECT they received was unhelpful or damaging.

Anyone with information on abuses by psychiatrists or psychiatric facilities, or adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs is asked to contact CCHR’s Abuse
Line on 0845 260 2247. All confidence will be protected.

CCHR was established by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

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