Posted on 01/07/2008 7:20:19 PM PST by neverdem
The history of electric shock therapy would seem to lend itself to a rather straightforward tale of last-ditch, gruesome treatment of mental illness. After all, we've all seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
But in their new book Shock Therapy, Edward Shorter and David Healy say this version is almost entirely inaccurate. Shorter is a historian who has written extensively on psychiatry, and Healy is a psychiatrist who has been highly critical of the marketing of psychopharmacological drugs. They believe that electroconvulsive therapy(ECT) is incredibly effective. And yet for decades, a severely depressed patient—even one on the brink of suicide—might not have been offered the therapy, or if her doctors had proposed it, she or her family might well have declined it. In explaining why, the authors demonstrate that though we may assume medical treatments get adopted or rejected based on objective statistics, in fact data are often misinterpreted and manipulated by outside influences that end up overpowering them.
The history of ECT began in 1938, when Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti connected a pair of electrodes to the head of a schizophrenic mechanic and shocked him until he seized. Cerletti was building on earlier work showing that seizures caused by injecting insulin seemed to help certain mentally ill patients. After several ECT treatments, Cerletti reported, the man's confusion and mutterings had resolved. Doctors did not know how ECT worked, although it was assumed that the seizure relieved symptoms by somehow "resetting" the nerve cells in the brain. But they were quite sure that it did work, not only for certain forms of schizophrenia but also for severe depression, a discovery made when Cerletti and others tried the technique on a broad range of patients. As one psychiatrist wrote about treating depressed patients with ECT: "It was like a miracle..."
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
May need to ping this for Hilary & Bill. They may need this in a few weeks to beat the depression.
They call it tune ups.
The stigma surrounding ECT comes from how the treatment had been used in the past and Hollywood. Its actually being used more commonly in the UK as a selective treatment when the United States uses it like you stated. "ECT is the last resort for the severely depressed who fail to respond to drug therapy."
ECT today is used to get a person enough out of their depression so they can respond to a therapist and antidepressants to avoid a relapse. Cognitive therapy such as DBT works best with clients that have PTSD for follow-up.
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I eat alphabet soup. I read words.
Please translate “DBT”. I know the other acronymns.
I suspect April15Bendovr made a typo and meant CBT (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy).
As a therapy
DBT falls under a type of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
I saw this work wonderfully on an elderly lady who was so severely depressed she was almost catatonic. After ECT she had some confusion for a week or so but came out of the entire episode beautifully. Her meds worked from then on with only one repeat of the ECT needed in the next 10 years. She passed on at 96m, a wonderful happy woman.
How about accupuncture? It appears to me that ECT works on the same principle just at a much higher frequency......and of course cost.
Of course Traditional Chinese Medicine has only been used for 5000 years so I guess it's still too experimental
ECT is also works very well on Bipolar clients that are in the depressive phase. The treatments are fewer in numbers with bipolar illness due to the risk of swinging the client to far in the other direction into a manic phase.
How do you feel about CBT for Bi-polar disorder?
More therapists need to be trained and practice CBT and DBT.
CBT & DBT allows people to think about having alternatives ways to cope rather than turning quickly to old behaviors or stinking thinking.
Metaphorically speaking its like giving an Alcoholic or drug addict 12 steps to follow in their recovery. It also makes the person responsible for accepting certain realities by developing a healthy side to dealing with their trauma or pain.
Unfortunately it seems lots of therapists are claiming to be trained, but really aren’t.
Don't worry, for you the electrodes don't go on your head.
I wouldn’t say CBT itself has the ability to stabilize someones mood because with bipolar the mood often needs to be controlled by medication which can be very frustrating for people with this mental illness. Once the mood is stabilized I do believe this therapy could help avoid a relapse.
My favorite person of all time had Bipolar
Sir Winston Churchill
Ahh yes, the quest for a good medicine mix.
THAT seems to be a never ending quest.
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