by Michael Chavin

About the author: Michael Chavin, an anaesthesiologist who assisted in 2,000 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) procedures, is now an outspoken critic of ECT. He is a commissioner with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, an organization that works to abolish human rights abuses in the field of psychiatry.

To begin with, electro-convulsive therapy is never referred to as shock treatment by those who profit from it. The word “shock” carries too many true, but threatening, connotations. Psychiatrists are more likely to tell you it is called “electrotherapy” or “electro-convulsive therapy” to blur any negative response. They’ll tell you openly that they don’t know how it “works,” nor that they have any scientific reasoning for why they think it is a good idea...