ECT AS AN INSTRUMENT OF REPRESSION: A Review

I recently bought Peter Breggin's Toxic Psychiatry for its chapter on ECT, and must state that the book is worth buying for this one alone. Let me first say that I think Breggin exaggerates a bit in a good cause. That is to say, he describes victims of ECT as having such severe brain damage that they could be described as severely retarded. My impression from the research I have done so far is that most people subjected to this procedure retain their previous intelligence level and personality characteristics-- it is their memory alone which is damaged. But this is precisely what makes ECT so dangerous, as we shall see. In any case, I cannot go along with Breggin in wanting to ban a procedure that works for some people-- who is he to say that Kitty Dukakis, for example, must not have ECT because he believes that it is bad for her? What needs to be done is to increase awareness of the dangers of ECT and to ban involuntary use of it absolutely, so that it will be used only on people who have given informed consent. That said, I must assert that Breggin is right on target in his views on ECT. While some psychiatrists deny that it erases memory to any significant extent, others maintain that it "works" precisely because it damages the brain. For instance, Max Fink, the "grandfather of ECT", acknowledges that "denial and euphoria are directly correlated to the degree of brain damage, as is demonstrated by abnormal brain patterns and other signs of dysfunction: brain disfunction is not, in Fink's own words, a "complication" but the sine qua non of the mode of action." The newer methods of ECT, which sedate the patient heavily before treatment, or direct the current only through the nondominant lobe of the brain, are no better than the old, according to Breggin, for the first requires a higher intensity of current, and the second has a "lobotomizing" effect. (pp. 208-209)

Perhaps the most damning section of this chapter concerns the motives of shock doctors. The profit motive is quite repulsively illustrated by Max Fink, who invites reporters to witness the administration of shock treatments for free, but will not let them see the patients after they have received a full course of shocks, unless they shell out some $25,000 to himself and $15,000 to the patient (the second request being an obvious ploy to deceive people into thinking that he cares about his patients). Not surprisingly, no one has taken up his offer (p. 188) although many ECT survivors have testified without charge concerning the way it has ruined their lives. Secondly Breggin sees a pattern of hatred and repression on the part of many shock doctors. He quotes a 1956 article in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases by researchers who found that these individuals expressed hostility and a desire to punish toward their patients. They made revealing jokes such as, "Let's give him the works," "Let's hit him with all we've got", or, "Why don't we throw the book at him." The frequent jests were viewed as the therapists' reaction to the sadistic implications of shock treatment." (p. 212). And at least one prominent psychiatrist took this sadism to its logical conclusion.

Gary Carl Aden was once the leading advocate of ECT in California. He got a law placing limits on its use overturned in 1976, and founded an organization to promote it. But all that ended in 1989. According to the San Diego Union, which Breggin quotes: "Dr. Gary Carl Aden, 53, of La Jolla, gave up his medical license effective September 8 after allegations that he had sex with patients, beat them and branded two of them with heated metal devices, including an iron which bore his own initials." I have since accessed the articles in question and know that Aden also hypnotized his patients and injected them with unknown drugs, perhaps to aid the hypnosis. As the technique developed by the CIA for "breaking" prisoners and turning them into "Manchurian Candidates" or today, phony terrorists utilizes a combination of ECT and narco-hypnosis, I have a strong suspicion that Aden once worked for the CIA. I am also astounded that he was not, according to Breggin, convicted of a criminal offense. Indeed, he was not even charged with one. Was this because he had damaged his victims' brains so profoundly that they could not be counted on to maintain a straight story in court, or because he had official protection? Anyone who has information regarding this is invited to write to me-- not to this website, because for some unknown reason I am not receiving any comments (not even hate mail!) but to my e-mail address.