Tag Archives: electroshock

Never again! The real history of psychiatry— by Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist

There have been recent calls for a national Mental Health Registry, and then additional calls to link such a registry to gun licensing. In the dreadful wake of Newtown, both the left and the right and the current US federal administration are demanding that we tighten mental health statutes to make it easier and even mandatory for health care providers including psychiatrists and psychotherapists to incarcerate people on suspicion of perpetrating violence.

In a recent blog, I evaluated all the ways psychiatry and individual psychiatrists already have too much authority to lock up American citizens. I’ve pointed out how ineffective that power has proven in preventing violence.

U.N. investigating Judge Rotenberg Center’s Use of Electroshock of Kids as Torture

Powerful video of a Judge Rotenberg Center student shocked and restrained for hours continues to reverberate on Beacon Hill and beyond, with opponents of the treatment stepping up efforts to ban the shocks as the United Nations expert on torture says he’s investigating the school. The video has helped fuel a renewed lobbying effort to ban the long-controversial shocks. Several opponents of the shocks, including the mother of the student in that video, visited lawmakers’ offices today to press for the ban.

“We’re going to continue to let our children be tortured? I just hope that they come to their senses are realize this is wrong and it’s been wrong for the last 27 years,” said Cheryl McCollins, mother of former Rotenberg Center student Andre McCollins.

Human Rights Group CCHR Gets Brave New Voice with Rapper Chill E.B.

The rap artist Chill E.B. is bringing the message of freedom from abuse to the masses, in his latest video. One of the rappers main causes is the group CCHR.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a nonprofit mental health watchdog, responsible for helping to enact more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices. CCHR has long fought to restore basic inalienable human rights to the field of mental health, including, but not limited to, full informed consent regarding the medical legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosis, the risks of psychiatric treatments, the right to all available medical alternatives, and the right to refuse any treatment considered harmful.