By Kelly Patricia O’Meara January 7, 2016 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has initiated a proposal that would reclassify Electroconvulsive Therapy Devices (ECT) from…
During the May 2013 annual conference of the American Psychiatric Association, APA, a study was presented, alleging that Electroconvulsive Therapy, ECT, (formerly known as Electroshock) for adolescents “is a safe, reasonably well-tolerated, and effective treatment.”
A new Scottish study hailing the wonders of electroshock treatment has provided yet another lame theory about how this violent therapy might “work.” And while the press seem content to robotically reiterate this bogus study, we’d like to point out the actual facts.
Professor Ian Reid from the University of Aberdeen, and colleagues claim that ECT works by “turning down” an overactive connection between areas of the brain causing depression. Incredibly, the authors claim electric shock may restore the brain’s natural chemical balance. This logic is so moronic we’re not sure where to start. First consider the fact that there is no proof that mental distress is due to a “chemical imbalance.” That theory was an invention of the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry and has never been proven. In fact, “leading” psychiatrists on National Public Radio recently admitted that the “chemical imbalance in the brain” theory is a fraud, and that pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists invented it to market Prozac. Another study that revealed that for 13 years media reported psychiatrists’ “discoveries” of a genetic/neurological cause of mental problems, none of which was subsequently proven.
The Aberdeen findings are just more of the same hype: “emerging” theory, “may” constitute a biological marker, they’ve found a “potential” therapeutic target in the brain. And the all-telling: “It is tempting to speculate that ECT might act to rebalance” specific brain activity “but the data presented here cannot confirm or refute this notion.” [Emphasis added][3] Let’s look more closely at what doesn’t get reported in the media:
Mental health services have become increasingly dominated by psychiatry’s ”medical model”, which claims that feeling depressed, anxious or paranoid is primarily caused by genetic predispositions and chemical imbalances.
This has led to alarming rises in chemical solutions to distress. In New Zealand, one in nine adults (and one in five women) is prescribed antidepressants every year.
The public, however, in every country studied, including Australia, believes that mental health problems are caused by issues such as stress, poverty and isolation. The public also prefers talking therapies to drugs and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
Research suggests the public is right. For example, the single best predictor of just about every mental health problem is poverty, followed by other social factors such as abuse, neglect and early loss of parents in childhood, and – once in adulthood – loneliness and a range of adverse events including losses and defeats of various kinds.
More than 1 million people are electroshocked every year, including children, the elderly and pregnant women. This is simply a brutal, invasive and damaging ‘treatment’ where up to 450 volts of electricity are sent through the skull. Psychiatrists admit they don’t know how electroshock ‘works’ and the reason behind this is simple: it doesn’t work. Not unless you consider cognitive impairment, brain seizures, permament memory loss and death ‘workable.’ Now in Australia, the use of electroshock for the young is on the rise. Mentioned in this article are the atrocities that were committed in Chelmsford psychiatric hospital where patients were put into drugged induced coma’s and electroshocked, killing dozens. That lethal and inhumane practice was exposed and then banned due to the efforts of CCHR. No organization has done more to expose the deadly practice of electroshock, or helped enact more international laws restricting or prohibiting its use, than CCHR.