Electroshock treatment (ECT) was developed in 1938 at a time that lobotomy and insulin coma therapy were already in use. Pioneer advocates of ECT openly admitted that it caused irreversible brain damage. In 1979 Dr. Breggin published the first medical book critical of ECT, Electroshock: Its Brain-Disabling Effects (New York: Springer Publishing Company). Dr. Breggin has advocated the banning of ECT, but it continues to be used extensively in most psychiatric facilities. In 1985 Dr. Breggin presented as the scientific expert on the brain-damaging effects of the treatment at the NIH Consensus Development Conference on ECT. In 2005 he was the medical expert in the first-ever malpractice victory against a doctor who referred his patient for ECT.
The best source of information on ECT memory loss and brain damage can be found in a chapter in Dr. Breggin’s book Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry. Many of Dr. Breggin’s articles on ECT can be found in his ECT Resources Center.
Brain-Disabling Therapies (1980)
Jan 01, 1980 | lobotomy-and-psychosurgery electroshock-ect selected-scientific-papers
Chapter 23 in Valenstein E (ed): The Psychosurgery...
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Shock Treatment III: Resistance in the 1980s (1979, reprint)
Jan 28, 1979 | electroshock-ect scientific-papers
A chapter from Dr. Breggin's 1979 book, Electrosh...
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