Let me preface by saying that I am not a trained historian or a trained medical professional, but I have been looking into the history of psychiatric care for several years now due to a bit of a fascination with it. As for ECT, I think that it has become a victim of unpopular history and horror stories. It does not take long for someone to hear about patients being subjected to unwilling ECT sessions and other forms of abuse/torture when discussing the history of any old abandoned psychiatric hospital down the street. This has given the therapy a barbaric view to much of the public, and this belief has been cemented in the public’s perception time & time again by TV shows & movies portraying cold & sadistic doctors & nurses unfairly administering ECT to unruly patients. Secondly, ETC is one of the oldest forms of psychiatric treatment that is still available for the use, which could scare off some people who would prefer a more modern approach, such as medication or occupational therapy over ECT. Lastly, there has also been stories saying that patients who received ECT would begin to suffer rather severe memory loss & other cognitive symptoms similar to a lobotomy. These stories go along with the other psych hospital horror stories, but while this scenario could have played out when ECT was a new & still unrefined therapy method, nowadays the effects on overall memory are short-term and only persist for a few minutes/hours after a session.

ECT has still proven to be a very effective & relatively harmless treatment method for patients with severe depression, schizophrenia-related psychosis, & extreme periods of mania. The slight seizure caused by the ECT helps regulate which chemicals the brain produces as kind of a “reset button”, allowing the brain to return to a more normal functioning capacity. ECT can still be obtained at many, if not most, present-day psychiatric hospitals, but usage of ECT may not be at it’s fullest capacity at least in part due to the reasons I listed above.

Source: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/ect-ethical-treatment

Thanks for reading my TED Talk.