Those against:

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 21

Those against:

“E.C.T. left me with more fears than I started with. I’d rather kill myself than go through with it again. Why, I don’t know,” said one patient.

That woman’s main fear was of receving any sort of anaesthetic, even for normal operations.

“The first course of E.C.T. must have helped me tremendously, but I still never want to go through it again,” she said.

“I’m now 95 to 100 per cent mentally fit, but it leaves you with a fear of doctors and any sort of hospitalisation.”

She described the treatment as "barbaric,” and said that she was treated impersonally; and that more attempts should be made to explain the effects until the patient was better.

“I was forced to go in; there was no alternative as my husband had already given his permission."

Gerald Henry, who worked with long-term patients as a student nurse in Sunnvside two years ago, said that he was totally opposed to E.C.T.

“My objection to shock treatment originates from the after-effects I witnessed as a nurse at Sunnyside Hospital. “Shock treatment combined with the unbelievable amount of drugs being administered to patients, and the ‘fixed ideas’ which are clung to by older, more seasoned nurses, ruined the efforts of genuine nurses who could see that love and care and understanding helped a person, not the random and ruthless shocking of the mind,” he said.

“Shock treatment was something that patients initially feared, but it became something they just accepted, along with their drugs. The after-effects I saw were terrible, the most frightening being severe memory loss and general no n-com-prehension.

"Sure there are successes, but they are so hit and miss, and the failures are so many, that it cannot possibly justify the use of shock theatment.

“I have met people who say that it has helped them. I feel that using shock to blast a person’s attention away from a problem, is not help. Understanding a problem fixes it, not blasting someone’s attention away from it.

“The body and mind are a delicate balance of energies and to put an uncontrolled or a controlled amount of electricity into the centre of these

energies really shows how desperate our psychiatrists are.

“The question I ask all those who administer shock treatment or say it is a good thing is: “Would you have it 10 times yourself?” One of the main causes of opposition to the treatment is that no-one is sure how it works. “I’m not sure either, but I’ll accept that it alters people’s mental functioning so that they can cope,” said Dr Dobson. He points to the use of digitalis, which has been used since 1776. Its beneficial effects are only now beginning to be fully understood.

The lack of knowledge also extends to effects, say the opponents. Fears of brain damage are common.

“There is very little evidence that E.C.T. damages the brain although this is a grey area,” said Dr Dobson. However, he admits that undiagnosed tumours may be aggravated. Side effects including head aches, memory loss, confusion, and its use to make patients more manageable, are also levelled against E.C.T.

The irrational but real fear already described by the patient is another side effect.

Fear of losing consciousness, the pain of the intravenous injections and general fears surrounding the use of E.C.T., occur.

Dr Dobson said he noticed that complaints of fear increased when the anaesthetic and muscle relaxant were injected at the same time.

“The relaxant may have worked sooner and caused some difficulty in breathing.” he said. Some patients fear that any tampering with the brain will affect the delicate balance which exists naturally. This is reinforced by views that the brain is the seat of the mind and perhaps even of the soul. The use of E.C.T. is also considered to be very vulnerable to abuse. “If it is used unskilfully, it can have a harmful effect,” said Dr Dobson.

Too few E.C.T. treatments could produce only partial recovery but persisting depression. “There is also a danger in too few treatments too widely spaced.” However a leading textbook, “Clinical Psychiatry’,” states: “The mistake most frequently made nowadays is the excessive or too "indiscriminate use of E.C.T. Misuse may indeed account in part for the tarnished image of E.C.T.,” said the textbook.

Some psychiatrists have been accused cf using E.C.T. as a way of relieving frustration with a difficult patient who does not get better. In New Zealand, fears are also being voiced that E.C.T. is being used as a form of punishment. At present the Health Department is investigating allegations by a spokesman for the Auckland Committee on Rasc i s m and Discrimination, Dr O. R. W. Sutherland, that children at the Lake Alice Hospital at Marton were given shocks to the legs three years ago. The allegation did not concern improper use of electro-convulsive therapy or shock treatment, said the senior officer responsible for mental hospitals, Dr S. W. P. Mirams.

Rather it concerned improper use of equipment for electro-convulsive therapy, he said. Critics point to the possibility or using E.C.T. in mental hospitals to make patients more manageable in the same way as they allege happens in the U.S.S.R. Dr Dobson admits that abuses might take place but declares that they can’t be prevented entirely by laws. "Rather the training of doctors, psychiatrists, and other skilled staff, imbued with the proper ethics should be made more effective,” said Dr Dobson.

Incentive to retain skilled psychiatrists in the country would relieve the pressure on an already overworked profession, he said.

Because of the many doubts surrounding E.C.T. the Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights has called for an inquiry. “The public inquiry should include a complete investigation into the death of Mr Letoa, a 51-year-old Samoan,” said a spokesman, Mr Bruce Gibson.

“Death records on all shock treatment facilities should be made available to such an inquiry,” he said.

There are doubts within the profession, too.

The professor of psychiatric medicine at the Upstate Medical centre at New York University (Dr Thomas Szasz) says: “It is a barbarity. I have never used it and never would.

“If someone asked me about it I would point out that neurologists go to great lengths trying to prevent seizures in persons who have epilepsy because every time a person has a grand seizure his bfain gets damaged.”