Dr. Bronner attempts to save the world with soap By Molly Snyder Edler OnMilwaukee.com Oct. 26, 2006 "If we ever advertised, I would have a billboard reading 'Our soap makes your crotch tingle,'" jokes Ralph Bronner, vice president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a 60-year-old company based in Escondido, California. But Ralph, who lives in Menomonee Falls, doesn't advertise. Instead, he promotes his family's business in unconventional ways. He and his wife road trip across the country with cases of ... (more...)

Added: Oct 26, 2006 10:56 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

By John David Sutter The Oklahoman Oct. 2, 2006 Michele Rodriguez-Ryland thinks about suicide every day - sometimes constantly. And if not for the 175 times she’s had medically administered electric shocks sent through her brain, she says her unyielding depression would have killed her by now. “It’s like going outside in the sunlight, you know, colors look brighter, people seem friendlier,” she said of the electroconvulsive therapy, also called ECT or shock therapy, she’s chosen to receive. “I just ... (more...)

Added: Oct 2, 2006 3:49 pm | 4 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Sep. 28, 2006 The State The body electric What’s more shocking — that electroconvulsive therapy is still around, or that some doctors and patients say it really works? By LINDA H. LAMB It’s a humid, overcast morning when Marcia Hudson heads to the hospital for a treatment most people would be surprised to know still exists. Reclining on a gurney with white cloths tucked around her, she will be rolled into a bright room at Palmetto Health Baptist. She will chat ... (more...)

Added: Oct 2, 2006 3:47 pm | 7 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

September 19, 2006 New York Times By JANE E. BRODY For an older woman I know who was suffering from “implacable depression” that refused to yield to any medications, electroconvulsive therapy — popularly called shock therapy — was a lifesaver. And Kitty Dukakis, wife of the former governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, says ECT, as doctors call it, gave her back her life, which had been rendered nearly unlivable by unrelenting despair and the alcohol ... (more...)

Added: Sep 18, 2006 9:01 pm | 3 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Her battle with depression is well known, but in her new book, Shock, Kitty Dukakis, with help from award-winning medical journalist Larry Tye, shares how controversial shock therapy treatments may have saved her life. September 17, 2006 Boston Globe It is June 20, 2001, Michael's and my 38th wedding anniversary. It also is the end of my fourth month of depression, my crisis period. I'm normally a person with enormous enthusiasm for ... (more...)

Added: Sep 17, 2006 8:37 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

MSNBC.com 'I Feel Good, I Feel Alive' In a new book, Kitty Dukakis credits electroconvulsive therapy for relieving her famously disabling depression. By Kitty Dukakis Newsweek Sept. 18, 2006 issue - As many as 100,000 people in the United States each year receive electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment that has improved dramatically since it was first used in the 1930s. On the advice of her doctors, Kitty Dukakis started ECT treatment in 2001 after suffering for decades from severe depression, substance-abuse ... (more...)

Added: Sep 13, 2006 9:11 pm | 3 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

A transformation to treasure Would you agree to electroconvulsive therapy? September 05, 2006 By Amber Smith Health & Fitness editor The Post Standard It was an average summer weekday, after a routine doctor's appointment, at an ordinary restaurant on Erie Boulevard. Debbie Ahearn was dining with her 82-year-old mother. It was a meal, a moment, she will never forget. Her mother ordered from the menu, then began talking about the weather. Debbie Ahearn burst into tears. "When you get a person back to life, you ... (more...)

Added: Sep 5, 2006 12:28 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Robert Pirsig: Still Zen after all these years Author's 500-page novel Lila about to be reissued He defined an era with Motorcycle memoir in 1974 Aug. 12, 2006 JOHN FREEMAN Toronto Star Robert Pirsig has a bone to pick with philosophers. As his era-defining memoir Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance levitated up the bestseller lists in 1974, all he heard from them was grumbling. This story of a father-son motorcycle trip across America was just a ... (more...)

Added: Aug 12, 2006 5:18 pm | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Last Resort Therapy The Record (Bergen County, NJ) 10-25-2005 Jennifer Hughes CORRECTION: An article about electroshock treatments that appeared in the Oct. 25 Health section incorrectly reported the name of the founder of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry. The group was founded by Marilyn Rice. (PUBLISHED THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005, PAGE A02.) When most people think of electroshock therapy, they picture Jack Nicholson writhing in agony on a gurney in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but "Jane" ... (more...)

Added: Jul 26, 2006 6:58 pm | 2 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print

Spring 2002 (pp.63-71) Ethical Human Sciences and Services: An International Journal of Critical Inquiry This is another exquisite article by my friend Leonard Roy Frank. Download pdf: ELECTROSHOCK: A CRIME AGAINST THE SPIRIT

Added: Jul 23, 2006 10:57 am | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Electroconvulsive therapy is enjoying a comeback, and though practitioners claim it's now safe and effective, others insist it still causes permanent damage BY TOM LYONS Eye Magazine October 2000 It is 8:15am, and the Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) room at the Queen Street Mental Health Centre is open for business. A man in his 40s sits in the waiting area. In a few minutes he will be injected with an anesthetic, a sedative and a muscle relaxant. Oxygen will be ... (more...)

Added: Jul 22, 2006 4:01 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

USA Today Series 12-06-1995 Former patient still suffering Delores McQueen of Lincoln, Calif., received shock treatment in 1993 at CPC Heritage Oaks Hospital in Sacramento. Her bill: $18,000. "I wouldn't have minded so much if it had done any good,'' says McQueen, who still suffers from deep depression. McQueen, who has fought depression much of her life, suffered a relapse after her sister died. She was hospitalized and even slashed her wrists in a suicide attempt. Her psychiatrist recommended shock therapy. ... (more...)

Added: Jul 22, 2006 12:03 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

USA Today Series 12-06-1995 For one girl, treatment and success Valerie seemed like a happy, well-adjusted 8-year-old when she went to summer camp for a week in 1993. She was popular at school. She got excellent grades. She worked hard to please people. But when Valerie came home from camp, she was withdrawn. She cried. She was hard on herself, always worrying that she was being bad. She kept saying, "I don't feel like myself." Her parents - who asked that ... (more...)

Added: Jul 22, 2006 12:03 pm | Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

USA Today Series 12-06-1995 Memory loss prompts woman to stop treatment Like most shock patients, Jeanne Bengston of Hilton Head, S.C., was shown an "educational'' video before getting her series of shock treatments. The video, sold by shock machine manufacturer MECTA Corp. of Lake Oswego, Ore., does not mention death rates or the views of critics who believe that shock causes brain damage. Instead, the video ends with a patient declaring: "It was a good experience. If I do feel ... (more...)

Added: Jul 22, 2006 12:03 pm | 1 Comment |  Email This Post  | Print

Audio Tune in every Tuesday at 1 ET (12 Central, 10 am Pacific) for the Mind Freedom Weekly News Hour, hosted by David Oaks. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.org/ Electroshock as violence against women: Dr. Bonnie Burstow explores electroshock as a form of violence against women. She is a feminist therapist, an anti-psychiatry and anti-fascist activist. She is also the former co-chiar of the Ontario Coalition Against Electroshock and is the author of Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of ... (more...)

Added: Jul 19, 2006 10:04 pm | 13 Comments |  Email This Post  | Print