Electroshock therapy still exists, despite a long-established record of permanent mental damage and memory loss.

Psychiatrist Michael Corry is an opponent to this “therapy.” In his words:

“Memory loss is the first obvious result. Other factors compromised include problem-solving ability, processing of new information, concentration, planning, decision-making, self-awareness, imagination, creativity, abstraction and reflection.”

Dr. Corry, a man who has witnessed firsthand the debilitating effects of electroshock therapy (ECT) gives this description of the victim:

“There is a particular “deadness” about people hurt by ECT: tiredness, as if they are living in a twilight zone. Their spirits seem broken. Some of the younger people I have encountered are unable to complete second-level education or engage in further studies, so compromised are their cognitive abilities.”

One wonders how anyone with any decency, let alone an entire profession, can claim ECT has anything beneficial to offer. Again, Dr. Corry responds:

“Psychiatry seems blind to the possibility that after an electric shock to the brain, it is the state of confusion, sometimes tinged with a mild euphoria, that obscures the individual’s original symptoms. This temporary obscuration is classified by psychiatrists as an ‘improvement’.”

On his website Psychiatric Drug Facts, Dr. Peter Breggin describes the mental effects of ECT.¹

“Patients given ECT are administered an electric current of sufficient intensity and duration to produce an acute organic brain syndrome, characterized by the classic symptoms of disorientation to time, place, and person; mental deterioration in all intellectual spheres such as abstract reasoning, judgment, and insight; emotional l[i]ability with extremes of apathy or euphoria; and overall childlike helplessness.”

He also remarks that in autopsies of ECT victims, brain hemorrhage and swelling of the brain (edema) have been found.

One may wonder what this “treatment” costs. According to the American Psychiatric Association:

“With eight as the average number of treatments, this means a course of ECT treatment will usually cost between $2,400 and $6,400.”

As with most psychiatric “therapies,” one need only follow the money trail to see who is actually benefiting.

Sources:

http://wellbeingfoundation.com/ECT250608.html (linked above)

1. http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40