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“Let’s not go overboard about ECT”

March 5, 2019 By Deborah Schwartzkopff

Peter Breggin, MD
Peter Breggin, MD

By Dr. Peter Breggin, MD in Mad in America

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. I appreciate Peter’s opposition to ECT. But that doesn’t mean ECT has not ‘helped people’ even though it might be a placebo effect.” Another declared it was “fashionable” to criticize ECT, but all treatments had their pros and cons. Most seemed to agree that “it sometimes works.”

This refusal to say or to accept something polarizing is a hallmark of most so-called reformers in the field of mental health. What about lobotomy—most of which my 1970s campaign stopped? What about insulin coma therapy? The spinning chair? What about freezing baths? What about the bleeding and purgatives? What about all the other atrocities committed by psychiatry on helpless “patients”? Should we never have simply said, “Stop!”?

Some Things Are Worth Polarizing Over

We know enough about the damage caused by ECT to conclude that it would be unethical even to experiment on people (and perhaps even on animals) in search of that person who supposedly might benefit…

Read full article here.

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Static-Electricity "and the ashes will be blown away from the tops of their heads. It is edict! It is writ!"

Welcome

Welcome to the ECT survivors website.

News & Events

  • Don’t swallow everything you’re told as the truth May 22, 2019
  • Failure to speak out against ECT May 17, 2019
  • Family Secrets May 14, 2019
  • Stop Shocking and Torturing Women – Mad in America May 13, 2019
  • Lou Reed: That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Radicalize Us – Mad in America May 6, 2019
  • An open letter to medical professionals April 24, 2019

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  • Be a Media Spokesperson for ECT Victims
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  • ECT Survivor Mary Maddock’s story
  • ECT Survivor Stories
  • FDA’s 2011 Hearings on Reclassifying ECT
  • Info about ECT
  • Is Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Effective?
    by Philip Hickey, PhD
  • Medical Records
  • Neurologist John M. Friedberg on ECT
  • No One Should Be Given Shock Treatment
  • Peter Breggin, MD: Electroshock is Brain Trauma
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  • Resources
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About ECT Justice

ECT Justice was created to help advocate for ECT survivors and their families and to gather and disseminate information about known risks of ECT.  If you are an ECT survivor suffering from post-ECT cognitive deficiencies, please know you are not alone.  By sharing your issues, we are able to continue our efforts toward helping ensure that appropriate warnings of the potential risk of permanent injury gets provided to anyone considering ECT. Together we can make a difference.

Recent Posts

  • Don’t swallow everything you’re told as the truth May 22, 2019
  • Failure to speak out against ECT May 17, 2019
  • Family Secrets May 14, 2019
  • Stop Shocking and Torturing Women – Mad in America May 13, 2019
  • Lou Reed: That Which Does Not Kill Us Can Radicalize Us – Mad in America May 6, 2019
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