“When science has a commercial basis, those who make a living out of one point of view seem much less likely to tolerate dissent than is normal in the rest of science.” (David Healy, from his 2004 book Let Them Eat Prozac) Once, just once, it would be nice to see doctors who use ECT make an argument for their product based on facts and science, without lies and omission, without making stereotypical errors of reasoning, and without lowering themselves to the level of libel by disparaging the sanity and veracity of their former patients. If any shock doctor is capable of doing this, it ought to be ... (more...)

Added: Apr 23, 2008 4:57 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

MindFreedom.org has a blog and has been documenting the ongoing Eli Lilly legal challenges: MindFreedom Blog Next blog is from the makers of the film "Side Effects," and includes news about the pharmaceutical industry. I'll soon be viewing and reviewing their new film "Money Talks - Profits Before Patient Safety." The trailer intrigued me and this looks like it could be a dandy! Mo Productions

Added: Feb 14, 2007 12:21 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

BY JOYCE RUSSELL Northwest Indiana Times Feb 3 2007 PORTAGE | Barbara Layton's depression had become so severe she had only the energy to sit in a rocking chair all day and slowly rock back and forth. The Hobart native and Portage resident had suffered from depression since she was a teen. At age 21, she attempted suicide. But it wasn't until she reached 40 that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Like most with the illnesses, she'd been treated with a cocktail of antidepressants. This time, however, they weren't working. Suicide again crossed her mind, but she didn't have the energy to carry out the thought, Layton said. Instead, after consulting with doctors and educating herself and family members, Layton agreed to undergo electroconvulsive therapy, or ... (more...)

Added: Feb 3, 2007 12:56 pm | 14 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

A video overview of electroconvulsive therapy by Dr. John Friedberg, author of "Shock Treatment is Not Good for Your Brain. Says the neurologist: "ECT isn't new and it isn't effective. It causes brain damage manifested mostly by amnesia. This video is a brief overview from my perspective as a neurologist." Click here to view video at You Tube. [gv data="fBK5Y5rmAy0"width="425" height="350"][/gv]

Added: Jan 30, 2007 4:59 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

The Argus Jan 19 2007 By Bella Todd The playwright Terence Rattigan once informed Harold Pinter that he knew exactly what The Caretaker was about: "God, the Holy Ghost and mankind." "No," Pinter replied wearily. "It's about two brothers and a caretaker." When David Bradley first read this jarring modern classic at drama school in the Sixties, he thought he might like to play one of the brothers: Mick, perhaps, alternately brutal and benevolent with a fascinating flicker of sadism, or his dispossessed older brother, Aston, made sweet and slow by electric shock treatment. "You never think," he says, "that you're going to be old enough to play Davies". In conversation Bradley is warm ... (more...)

Added: Jan 23, 2007 3:28 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Ignored for decades, the twisted genius of Mervyn Peake is finally getting the attention it deserves BY JOEL MEADOWS Time Dec 11, 2006 With a career encompassing 25 years that included five novels, a handful of plays and thousands of drawings, paintings and sketches, why isn't Mervyn Peake a more celebrated English literary and artistic hero? A cult figure today, Peake is best known for Gormenghast, his bleak but compelling gothic fantasy trilogy published in the 1940s and '50s about the hierarchy of a fictional castle, Gormenghast, and the Machiavellian machinations of its inhabitants. But he was also an accomplished illustrator, painter and war artist. "If somebody's good at everything, then they're never taken seriously, are they?" muses Chris Beetles, owner of the eponymous ... (more...)

Added: Dec 11, 2006 4:08 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Note: The Electroshock Quotationary is the ONLY place you can read my article "March of the Damned." It's a Quotationary EXCLUSIVE! Download now! by John Breeding, PhD In the 1990s update to his terrific book, Electroshock: The Case Against, which offers summaries of activist resistance to electroshock over the last four decades of the 20th century, Robert Morgan offered the following acknowledgment of Leonard Frank. His written work on ECT and advocacy against it have straddled the decades covered in this book. Initially disabled by ECT, Leonard devised some particularly ingenious organizational and memory techniques to overcome his resultant learning disabilities. He has devoted his life to addressing and correcting abuses of the psychiatric system, particularly ECT. Although he has been ... (more...)

Added: Aug 8, 2006 11:24 am | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Israel's Habimah Theater Finally Arrives Stateside By Mr. Raphael Mostel For its first New York visit in 40 years, the renowned National Theater of Israel, Habimah, will present two fact-based modern dramas involving Jewish children growing up with a parent veering into madness. The main production comprises four evening performances, from September 18 to September 21, of the big-scale "Kaddish L'Naomi," Habimah's theatrical adaptation of Allen Ginsberg's searing memorial poem for his mother. It will be performed in Hebrew with English subtitles, multimedia and a cast of nine. On September 20 and September 21, there will also be two matinee performances of the small-scale "Summer of Aviyah," Gila Almagor's one-woman dramatic adaptation of her famous coming-of-age memoir of her own mother, ... (more...)

Added: Aug 7, 2006 6:54 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Video Review Beyond Stigma: The Compassionate Application of Electro-Convulsive Therapy by Linda Andre The only reason shock treatment has gotten such an undeserved bad rap is because doctors who give it don't treat patients nice enough. What's wrong with this statement? If you said nothing, I can think of some prime real estate in Brooklyn that's for sale real cheap. Most people would probably say, "While I have no personal knowledge about shock treatment and haven't researched it myself, I am willing to take the word of a psychiatrist and member of the American Psychiatric Association, who must know what he's talking about. Besides he wouldn't have produced and marketed a tape with such nice music, and couldn't sell it for so much money, and ... (more...)

Added: Jul 23, 2006 6:00 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print