Irony in The New York Times
Is it me, or does anyone else find it ironic that The New York Times ran an uncritical appraisal of ECT ("Shock Therapy Loses Some of Its Shock Value") in the same edition of its Science Section (Sept. 19, 2006) as an article entitled "In Science-Based Medicine, Where Does Luck Fit In?"
Luck has everything to do with ECT, in my opinion. I think it is essentially a crapshoot. I'm not saying that no one benefits: Clearly, many people do. It's even possible that the majority of people do; at least, I have no way of knowing how many people have been helped. But others have their lives blighted due to permanent, sweeping memory loss and cognitive impairment. And there is no way to tell in advance if you will be lucky or unlucky.
According to the National Mental Health Association's position statement (which, in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I helped to draft), ECT involves "serious risks," and the NMHA "recommends that ECT be presented as an alternative with extreme caution, only after all other treatment approaches, such as medication and psychotherapy, have either failed or have been seriously and thoroughly evaluated and rejected."
Yet the Times piece plays down potential risks and devotes lots of ink to well-known satisfied customers, such as Dick Cavett and Kitty Dukakis; it gives much less space to people whom ECT did not help and, in fact, harmed. It's true that the article quotes Ernest Hemingway, who died by suicide after condemning ECT as "ruining my head and erasing my memory." But that happened in 1961, and the Times asserts that "ECT today is a far more refined and limited therapy."
With the current state of psychiatric treatment, I would not seek a ban on ECT: Again, there are people who feel it saved their lives after other treatments failed to relieve their symptoms. However, I do believe that those who are contemplating this controversial procedure should have the opportunity for fully informed consent, and this is usually not the case. For example, the information about ECT offered by the American Psychiatric Association on its Web site is misleading in its downplaying of the procedure's risks.
If you want to learn more about ECT, I urge you to visit www.ect.org, a Web site developed by Juli Lawrence after her own experience with ECT. Another place to get information is the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (CTIP), a national organization of more than 500 former ECT recipients.
During my own struggles with debilitating depression, I never considered ECT; I knew too much about it.
posted by Susan Rogers
Luck has everything to do with ECT, in my opinion. I think it is essentially a crapshoot. I'm not saying that no one benefits: Clearly, many people do. It's even possible that the majority of people do; at least, I have no way of knowing how many people have been helped. But others have their lives blighted due to permanent, sweeping memory loss and cognitive impairment. And there is no way to tell in advance if you will be lucky or unlucky.
According to the National Mental Health Association's position statement (which, in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I helped to draft), ECT involves "serious risks," and the NMHA "recommends that ECT be presented as an alternative with extreme caution, only after all other treatment approaches, such as medication and psychotherapy, have either failed or have been seriously and thoroughly evaluated and rejected."
Yet the Times piece plays down potential risks and devotes lots of ink to well-known satisfied customers, such as Dick Cavett and Kitty Dukakis; it gives much less space to people whom ECT did not help and, in fact, harmed. It's true that the article quotes Ernest Hemingway, who died by suicide after condemning ECT as "ruining my head and erasing my memory." But that happened in 1961, and the Times asserts that "ECT today is a far more refined and limited therapy."
With the current state of psychiatric treatment, I would not seek a ban on ECT: Again, there are people who feel it saved their lives after other treatments failed to relieve their symptoms. However, I do believe that those who are contemplating this controversial procedure should have the opportunity for fully informed consent, and this is usually not the case. For example, the information about ECT offered by the American Psychiatric Association on its Web site is misleading in its downplaying of the procedure's risks.
If you want to learn more about ECT, I urge you to visit www.ect.org, a Web site developed by Juli Lawrence after her own experience with ECT. Another place to get information is the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (CTIP), a national organization of more than 500 former ECT recipients.
During my own struggles with debilitating depression, I never considered ECT; I knew too much about it.
posted by Susan Rogers
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