This group of protesters in Montreal was part of a number of Mother's Day protests against electroshock, or ECT. Yawn. ECT is called a tool of the patriarchy and often brought up in antipsychiatry rants because it's a scary image for those who don't know its modern uses. As for sexism, more women are depressed than men, 2/3 of cases, but protesters like Bonnie Burstow turn such unremarkable statistics into blaming the patriarchy. Treatment is violence against women, and of course, psychiatrists who use ECT are just like rapists.
More and more feminist groups are buying into antipsychiatry crap like this. Rape crisis centres, women's referral centres, education groups, - these are front lines for some types of mental health care (like for PTSD) and they're now planning to tell women who benefit from ECT to fear it instead. Mental health is so, so unamusing...but at least you can giggle at these women's hats.
Comments
I wonder if these women are associated with the Church of Scientology or one of its antipsychiatry front groups...
Posted by: Orac | May 20, 2007 4:19 PM
Oh dear, now I really am going to have to throw away my umbrella hat.
Posted by: ClinkShrink | May 20, 2007 5:29 PM
I think everyone associates it with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest where it was essentially described as a method of torture and lobotomy.
Most people don't understand that it's used today under anesthesia, and is only used as a last resort for things like refractory depression and catatonia.
Posted by: MarkH | May 20, 2007 6:17 PM
ECT use tends to be pretty rare these days, I can't remember the last time I dealt with any patient suffering from depression who had it done. When I was in graduate school at York University in Toronto, my thesis supervisor was Norman Endler who had a depressive episode some time frequently and credited ECT with helping him out of the depression. He even wrote a book about it titled Holiday of Darkness. You so rarely hear about pro-ECT stories these days.
Posted by: Romeo Vitelli | May 20, 2007 6:56 PM
I agree, Romeo, though Kitty Dukakis has been fairly outspoken as to her mostly positive experience with the treatment. Cognitive bias runs deep: show someone One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest once, and you'll have quite a time convincing them of the truth--ECT today is highly safe, rare, and effective. We're not strapping people down and shocking them to enforce some kind of uniform social order; that we once did something like that is a real black eye for psychiatry, as it should be.
Posted by: THobbes | May 20, 2007 8:05 PM
I should probably note that I am unable to point out specific instances in which ECT has been used in a punitive fashion: that was an assumption on my part, and perhaps an unreasonable one. See what I mean about cognitive bias?
Posted by: THobbes | May 20, 2007 8:14 PM
Clink: rofl
Posted by: Sandra | May 20, 2007 8:34 PM
Dr. Bonnie Burstow explores electroshock as a form of violence against women.
So when ECT is used to treat male patients, she doesn't consider it violence against men? How sexist of her!
Posted by: The Neurocritic | May 22, 2007 2:06 AM
A critique of ECT which is indeed still often used is href="http://www.ect.org/harold-sackeim-reverses-position-in-upcoming-study/">here. This is a study done by a proponent of ECT. You don't have to be a radical feminist to have concerns about the safety and efficacy of ECT.
Posted by: Gianna | May 25, 2007 1:56 PM
well I tried to embed the link and failed...anyway...I'll just give the link.
http://www.ect.org/harold-sackeim-reverses-position-in-upcoming-study/
You don't have to be a radical anti-psychiatry feminist to question the safety and efficacy of ECT....and it is indeed still used quite often.
Posted by: Gianna | May 25, 2007 1:58 PM
Antipsychiatry is not crap . Psychiatry is the crap.
http://www.idiom.com/~drjohn/amjpsych.html
Time to Abandon Electroconvulsion as a Treatment in Modern Psychiatry
http://www.ect.org/resources/abandon.html
Posted by: Mark(p.s.2) | May 26, 2007 4:28 PM
Your proof that psychiatry is crap is one article that's 30 years old and in no way reflective of current medicine, and one fairly recent one on a website with a political agenda that is known for not doing thorough research?
Let's see some LEGITIMATE sources please. Try pubmed instead of google.
Posted by: Jason | July 13, 2007 9:03 PM