Do you think electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is inhumane?

[Anonymous]

I understand why some people in the 1940s might have thought it was inhumane. In the 1940s people undergoing etc often did not have anesthesia or muscle relaxants. Undergoing etc without anesthesia and muscle relaxants would have been physical painful.

It’s not the 1940s anymore. It’s the 21st century. Medicine and technology have improved.

In the 21st century people are often given anesthesia and given muscle relaxants for etc.

There is also evidence doctors and the medical community have found that shows etc works and is beneficial.

[msc545]

I don't think it is inhumane at all, given the fact that most antidepressant medications don't work, and the alternative to etc is often either suicide or interminable hospitalization.

[lightbulb27]

Belief works, right? If a wrong belief (s) exists, one remains trapped, right? like a mouse in a maze they cannot escape from. Changing ones belief (s), repetition, can lead to positive change, yes? The brain makes it's own "good" drugs when it is under the right influence. Forcing another drug into to alter a state is not an exact science would be highly prone to flaw. Just the thyroid alone, for one gland, is so so sensitive...
a relative got shock therapy long ago, it didn't go well...
but a "shock" or bottoming out, is often what is required to get someone to change direction.

Is that right?

[msc545]

There is no and has never been any clear understanding of why it is that etc seems to work but it actually does in many instances. If not all. The drugs that are marketed as antidepressant drugs sometimes do work for people, but I suspect that this is more of a placebo effect than anything else. Since the theoretical formulation of the serotonin hypothesis is simply that a theoretical formulation and we cannot prove or disprove the existence of serotonin much less the hypothesis that modifying the uptake of it somehow results in less depressive symptoms.

As with for what you have said, I don't think this is a precisely well formulated concept, although it is not entirely wrong, probably, either.

[slatyb]

No, I don't. No one is being forced to be treated with etc. It does seem to help relieve chronic depression that hasn't responded to medication.