Have you ever had electroconvulsive therapy?

Or in its familiar term, electroshock therapy? And did it help or alleviate your anxiety and depression? Did it hurt you in any way or not help you?

 

no i haven't. my dad had to have it done and it made him worse. i don't believe in it and i don't believe it helps anyone in any case.

 

Having worked as a psychiatric nurse for 20 years, I've seen it done a lot and I've seen it help a lot of people. Many clients would not be able to be discharged and have a life without it.

It doesn't help everyone though.

 

I would like to see the statistics, because every case that I've heard of has been radically unsucessful.

 

there are a lot of other things that i would try first before ect

authors to check into: abram hoffer and michael murray

~be well~

 

My mom's co-worker had it done several times and became worse each time. That is the only thing I have heard from it though. I thought it was a bit outdated as a form of therapy.
I would try everything natural first (exercising everyday, meditating, joinging support groups). I used to have really bad anxiety and I can't emphasize how much exercise can really help you mentally. We are meant to run miles each day if you look at our roots. Sometimes energy is mistaken for anxiety.

 

Re statistics, it might be that if you look you'll find that for every unsuccessful case, there is a lot more that are successful. I'm not sure where you'll find such statistics but they probably are out there.

I can only relate what I have seen but here comes the question.

Do we define success as never needing ECT ever again?

If that's our definition of success, then I have to say that many cases I have seen and assisted with were also unsuccessful.

On the other hand, if a person is not going to exercise or meditate or these things don't work and neither do tricyclic antidepressents or monoamineoxidase inhibitors or serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or this or that or antipsychotics in the case of psychosis then ECT, a course of 8 - 12 can enable a person to have a life.

There is no shortage of clients who come in as outpatients for maintenance ECT once a fortnight or once a month.

Meditation, philosophy, shifting of focus beyond self and obsession with self's problems, exeercise; all of these are good things to try first.

Psychiatry is too quick to invoke its usual model of practice though. Too slow to look at alternatives.

Too underfunded to look at alternatives.

I think we can blame politicians for that!

 

my girlfriends brother in law would go and get that done for his depression when he could've just taken b12 shots and now he's in the state hospital much worse off.