References to Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest do nothing for the arguments for and against shock therapy. They only dramatize the issue and draw readers to it, I suppose. He survived the shock therapy, as I recall, and it was the sight of stitches in his skull that blew away his Indian buddy.

Having read some of the stories in this list from those who purport to have been saved, more or less, by such shock treatment, I cannot argue with such success and I admire their honesty.

However, I would like to point all of you to a museum in the Jamestown area of Virginia. It is the reminder of psychiatry from its earliest days in the United States through relatively recent times.

There are eerie moments as you go through it, as they play voices over hidden speakers in a couple of the 'rooms' (cells), ostensibly the plaints of the patients. They are strikingly wrenching.

But what really got to me was a room of instruments used over the years to cure various mental illnesses. These 'tools', which would be sure to have places of honor in Hannibal Lecter's closets, are lit in the way that works of art are lit in museums and this makes them more dramatically evil in their presentation.

What one comes away with, what I came away with, was this ridiculous comparison between what was then and what will be in the days of Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy.

We are somewhere on the short end of that, my friends, and there is a long, long way to go.

Doctors, psychiatrists, scientists, they are men and women of great hubris. I salute them for their efforts at progress, but I caution as well that they are also ignorant slaves of their times as well as victims of their tremendous egos.

Given the choice between shock therapy and death, I would choose to die. Right after having the author of this piece, and his 'experts', agree to hook up for a dose or two.

I guess this is why they call it "The Fray." As a historian of medicine, I am well aware that brutal things have been done to psychiatric patients. But that is no reason to reflexively dismiss modern versions of old procedures that are effective, at least for certain people. As for me, I think I would take ECT if I were severely depressed and not getting better with pills. A family member of mine did when she got very depressed after the death of her mother. Even though she was taking pills she got gradually worse and started talking about killing herself even though she had no psychiatric history. We had her admitted to an in-patient facility. After a couple of ECT treatments she was better and after about 5-7 she was "cured." She does not remember her severe depression or the ECT but remembers everything else. I realize this is only one case but the data suggest there are many more just like it.

Barron Lerner

You wouldn't by any chance have visited the "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum"? You know, the one that's run by Scientologists? Whose founder, sci-fi writer and lifelong con man L. Ron Hubbard claimed that psychiatrists "are the sole cause of decline in this universe"?

If so, then you might just be another one of the countless victims of HIS tremendous ego.

You are correct: I did respond immediately and reflexively, envisioning the ECT of the old days, and not considering the dramatic improvements in patient treatment in all areas of medicine. I did not consider the idea of sedation and other measures used to make the patient more comfortable and in less pain for the procedure today. For that I admit being remiss.

However, I retain a large concern about the procedure, and it is with respect to its non-specificity. I would be frightened to be subjected to a treatment of the brain that affects it in its entirety when, as far as we know, the problem is limited to a specific area or a function. When drugs are administered, for example, there is some notion that the drug will modify some perceived chemical imbalance; there is a semblance, at least, of specificity.

Further, and as a historian of the subject you must be aware of this, I am fearful of medicine's tendency toward the 'cure of the day', as I tried to evocate in the description of the tools found in that museum. I do not believe that those who practiced with those tools considered themselves sadists; rather, I believe they thought they were doing a great service to the patients and to society. It's the 'hindsight' thing that bothers me about use of such a generalized procedure on such a fragile part of the body.

I am glad to hear that your sister had a positive experience with ECT, by the way, truly, although it does not change my own personal choice re the matter.

Thank you for a well-reasoned, well-tempered response.

Thanks for your excellent reply. You are right on about the hubris of past physicians believing they had the cure for something and being way off base. I spent several years researching the history of breast cancer and the ongoing use of radical mastectomy into the 1980s was outrageous. By the way, I'm a "soccerfreak" myself, coaching my daughter's teams for years. BL

The "Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds" was the first building in North America devoted solely to the treatment of the mentally ill. The first patient was admitted October 12, 1773.

. . .

Colonial Williamsburg acquired the property in the 1960s, when the hospital moved to land provided by John D. Rockefeller Jr., west of the city. In 1972, archaeologists uncovered and excavated the Public Hospital's foundations – still filled with the ashes and debris of the great fire of 1885. Reconstruction was approved in 1979.

The Public Hospital reopened on June 8, 1985, with six exhibition cells in the first floor of the east wing and staff offices on the second story. From the west wing an underground concourse leads to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.

You can check out more about it here: <link>

Hope this helps.

As someone who has had ECT in the past, I feel the need to respond to your comments.

I suffered from depression my entire life (yes, as a child I can recall feeling the constant doom and gloom ) and it continued to control ever aspect of my life. I had tried group therapy, 1:1 therapy, hypnosis, eating certain foods, even acupuncture before I tried medication. The pills did work - or at least made my life more bareable. I had no idea what it felt like to be 'normal' - what everyone else seemed to be feeling. But everyone was certainly feeling better than I was, that I knew. Plus, I did often feel like I did not want to live.

I had a tragedy in my life - which took me to the brink of death (attempted suicide 3x' within 3 months). My mind was CONSTANTLY focused on death!! I was literally counting each breath, knowing it was one less to the end of my life. I finally met a psychiatrist who really seemed to take an interest in 'healing' me. Not just medicating me as the others had. After spending a significant amount of time with her, she explained ECT to me - extensively! I decided to go ahead - I knew I had absolutely nothing to lose. What could possibly be worse than spending every moment of every day wishing I could die? Actually dying?? Would be a dream come true to me!!

I had 17 treatments. It got rid of my life-long depression - and I could then deal with the depression caused by the tragedy that had taken place a few months earlier.

For me, it was a miracle. I never imagined that life was supposed to feel this good! Not in my wildest dreams... When I think about how my life used to be, it over-whelms me. No one should have to live like that.

The ECT took place 4 years ago, and I've never had to repeat the process as some people do. I would do ECT again if I needed to. I do continue to take some medication, but it is a small price.

Soccerfreak wrote;

Given the choice between shock therapy and death, I would choose to die.

I don't think I've been as offended about a comment before as I am about this one. People who wish to attempt to or do commit suicide never want to do die. They actually don't want to live in pain anymore. There is an incredible difference between the two. Someone who is contemplating suicide and who would then be presented with another option (ECT for example) would most likely take the other option over death.

Depression has a terrible stigma attached to it that people who don't suffer from it (or have lighter degrees of it) don't realize. People are embarrassed to reach out, so they suffer in silence. They don't get the help they need because they are worried about how others will see them. Have you ever been surprised when someone you know has committed (or attempted) suicide? You believe he seemed "fine", like nothing was wrong? I don't think people realize that depression can be terminal. Because it isn't a physical pain, it isn't perceived as a real pain. Because YOU don't have depression (or a debilitating mental illness) then it must not exist or can't be THAT bad. That people need to 'buck up' or pull themselves up by the boot straps.

Nobody realized how badly I wish I had been able to over come depression throughout my life. Depression held me back from doing so many things, it controlled my entire life. I thank God for the ECT I received.

I empathize with you. As a cancer survivor who now faces the prospect of an MRI to the brain to see if the thing has metastisized to that organ, I HAVE had to contemplate death as an alternative to treatments.

And so, I made the statement not so lightly as you might have suspected.

As I indicated in the original post, and again in a response to another, I say again, I am glad that ECT was a success for you.

For my part, I have no God to look forward to, and so choose to stay in this world for as long as I can retain my sense of self, not one moment beyond. And I am still not up for mods to my mind that are not self-inflicted or at least specific in purpose.

Thanks for the response. I do wish you the very best.

After living her married life on a rural farm located over a gravel pit of sand, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed as a manic/depression, bi-polar personality late in life. The trigger for this behavior was severe grief over a family crisis. She took lithium and with that simple mineral, she lived a normal life.

I now consider her the sane grandmother. I was not allowed to visit her ... I was told she was crazy ... I lived in fear of being insane ... I loved her so very much ...

As a young child, I struggled with the genetic depression that existed in my father's family. My overwhelming goal was to leave. They were emotionally and physically abusive to me. They denied me contact with my greatest love ... my totally loving grandmother.

Extended family members have commented to me that it is amazing that I came from that family. Only recently did I realize the full extent of their mental illness. My counselor says I am OK as long as I understand what was happening around me. She says it is amazing how well I understand.

I think it is amazing I survived ... I left ... I met someone who built his life around providing for his family ... obcessively ...

I once had a happy marriage. Looking back, it was almost too perfect ... he had developed a facade to bury his past.

My husband chose to be in denial of his childhood. With the recent death of his father, he could no longer hide the pent-up frustrations of his abusive childhood with a father who was a gambling alcoholic who died in debt.

I awoke one day not knowing who I had married.

I was plunged into my husband's deep depression and mid-life crisis. He tried pills ... right now, we just live with his behavior ... which I would rather not discuss ... lets just say he has improved ... and I have a support structure of friends who understand the "truth" ... beyond the rumors of his behavior at that time that probably damaged his reputation.

He has chosen to live.

Looking back, I now wonder if there was a hidden trigger to his problems. We were doing a major remodeling project to our house and my husband was severely shocked ... it probably should have killed him ...

Is there any information about the negative mental aspects of electrical shock as a trigger to depression?

Although it took a while to get there, you ask the question that should be asked by all. I note from the responses that come after my own original one that there are quite a number who are exulting in the power of the shock (just as there are a few in this stream as well).

While I remain very happy for those who have found success with the treatment, my skeptical thought is that those who were not cured by ECT may not be in shape to respond to this site.

The point I gather from your response, intended or not, is well taken: who will speak for those for whom the treatment failed?

Soccerfreak:

I've read many of the posts about this article with great interest, but your last paragraph really stuck me.

"Given the choice between shock therapy and death, I would choose to die. Right after having the author of this piece, and his 'experts', agree to hook up for a dose of two."

The second sentence is easier to adress: I agree that the article was perhaps a bit too uabashedly enthusiastic about ECT, as the treatment does have serious risks and drawbacks. However, asking the author of an article in favor of a medical treatment to uneccesarily subject themselves to that treatment is a bit unreasonable. Would you make the same statment if the article was in favor of artificial hearts? lol, "If he thinks artificial hearts are so great, he should have his own heart replaced with an artificial one" That only seems ludicous because of the lack of acceptance of the general public of mental illness as real.

The first sentence was the one that really struck me however, as that is precisely the decision I am facing - treatment or death. I suffer from major depression as I have for my entire life (one of my first memories is saying, "mommy, I'm sad"), and my new years resolution for 2008 is that this will be the last year I will suffer from depression. In other words, by the end of this year, I plan to either have relief from my symptoms, or be dead. I know it sounds morbid, but it's given me a newfound resolve to address my condition. One of the insidious things about depression is that while you suffer, you become convinced that it's somehow 'right' to feel this way, and you lose all motivation to heal yourself, as it seemingly requires an unimaginable amount of work. So, I'm looking into treatment options, I haven't yet tried. One is ECT, and I'm reluctant to do it. Is it worth the risk and side effects? I've looked into clinical trials and none will take me, I'm too sick for them. I am trying some other things, but it seems as though, ECT is my best hope at this point. So.... "given the choice between shock therapy and death...." Indeed......