Simon Wessely: ‘ECT is in my own advance directive’

I suspect more is understood about it now.

Agreed. But there is invariably a cost/benefit calculation for most treatments.

 

Yeah. That must have been terribly unpleasant. I'll take the anesthesia, please.

 

To be fair this may have been my mother's terminology not quite right, or even my memory. It's a long time ago we ever spoke about it.

 

This isn't the reference i was thinking of but came up in a quick google search
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/electroshock-treatment_b_1273359.html

I agree completely with this

I agree that you can seizure peoeple into not thinking about their problems. Thats not a cure, anymore then MDMA is. At least in my opinion. I came across a case i didn't post earlier about a teenager with anorexia who consented to being shocked, the number of conditions electroshock is used for is growing

 

I'm sorry Alvin but that is so very wrong. My mother's problem was nothing like simply thinking about her problems; it was her mental health problems themselves, not merely thinking about them. Mental health issues such as these are way more than people over-thinking their issues, they run much deeper, and even mental health issues can have very physical underpinnings.

 

That is a long discussion that is probably best not to have in this thread.

 

But it is about a core statement you are making in this thread in support of what you are saying.

 

Without further details I would hazard to guess that the presumably very small amount of such children would be exhibiting severe self-harming behavior that could not be managed through other interventions. In such dire situations ECT could, in fact, be a valid last resort.

I didn't say otherwise. It's just that personally it would make me more angry to suffer side effects from an intervention given inappropriately than when properly indicated. I am sorry for anyone who experiences distressing ongoing memory issues regardless.

 

You will get no argument from me, but i have been warned

Its interesting how once something is okay for the "worst" cases many conditions now qualify, the definition expands when useful

 

I think I'll rest my case.

Let it be understood that no BPS person can accuse me of being ideologically anti-psychiatry!

 

Well actually they might well accuse you of that, but it would - as is so often the case - be a false accusation .

 

I do not say this whatsoever

 

I think @Alvin is confusing being very (very very) seriously depressed, versus clinical depression, which is so very different. I wish the latter did not have "depression" as a name, because it is as confusing as talking about "chronic fatigue" versus ME.

 

Dang you're right. I hadn't even considered that! How could I have been such a fool?

 

I can't help being a pedant at times . And no, you most certainly are not a fool.

 

I think this holds, as does that history repeats itself. It is proven again and again in history.

ECT is called electroshocks coloquially. To be very honest I am a bit shocked that electroshocks seem to be ok for some here. If people choose them voluntarily after they were informed about the mechanism, chances and risks - ok. People are free to choose. Unless, of course, they're incapacitated. Which, I think, will often be the case in these situations.

Also, I don't want to belittle any successes or personal experiences which touched me, to be honest.

But whenever I heard of electroshocks, they were forced upon people, either as a forced treatment (e.g. in a psychiatric unit) or as a form of torture/punishment during (forced) hospitalization in a psychiatry.

I highly doubt we completely understand what ECT does in the brain. We don't understand what depression is, or schizophrenia. But nonetheless, electric currents are applied.

It is widely believed that after brain death the person can't feel pain anymore. But there are indications that this doesn't have to be the case. In total, we don't know if a brain dead person feels or feels not. But it is operated (in order to get organs e.g.) without anaesthetics. IF we can feel pain while brain dead, but unable to communicate it, this is pure horror. Even into the 70s, if I remember correctly, it was believed babies can't feel pain, and for operations, also, anaesthetics weren't used.

We don't know very much. We understand even less. But we do so much.

 

I understood this is exactly what @Alvin meant. No?

 

I just want to add the following when reading the link to Mayo @arewenearlythereyet supplied. They talk about side effects. My experience was with information about side effects in treatments involving electrical currents: side effects were trivialized in my case. When I reacted badly (I talked about it on another thread) I was told several times this is psychosomatic and that they won't prescribe pain killers.

I read similar stories wrt. lumbal puncture (which, obviously, doesn't include electric currents), and after the one I had I also was told the resulting pain was a proof of my psychosomatic disorder. I was lucky my pain went away after 3 weeks.

Chances are high that you're left alone if you have any "unusual" side effects (i.e. side effects that are maybe usual but it is not talked about). This wasn't in my mind until recently, but I will include this in any risk-chance-estimation in the future.

 

I agree this needs to be considered. I'm sorry that you are apparently dealing with a bunch of superstitious Freud-worshipers.