Electroshock treatment featured prominently as part of a damaging and deadly psychiatric practice called “Deep Sleep Treatment” (DST). Used in Australia in the 1960s up to 1979, it was banned under the 1983 New South Wales Mental Health Act. So potentially harmful, criminal penalties, including jail, were implemented should DST be practiced. Other Australian states … Read more
(Updated November 27, 2020) A lethal psychiatric drug and shock practice CCHR fought to get banned decades ago should spur accountability and patient protections today. Jan Eastgate, a patients’ rights advocate, spent 14 years investigating and exposing deep sleep treatment in Australia, working with a heroic whistleblowing nurse, patients, legislators and the media to get … Read more
CCHR says new UK research on electroshock “therapy” damage—given each year to 100,000 Americans, including children as young as five—should prompt review of U.S. studies and a ban on the practice. Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a mental health industry watchdog, praised new UK peer-reviewed research published in the journal Ethical Human Psychology and … Read more
A 43-year patient advocate and shock survivor applauds mental health activist on her complaint filed with FDA to enforce patients being told the truth about ECT Lauren Tenney, Ph.D., a psychiatric survivor and activist who has long-exposed the dangers of electroshock treatment, wrote a compelling article recently about her filing a regulatory misconduct complaint with … Read more
Oversight of psychiatric facilities during COVID-19 is being reduced, putting patients at risk of treatment death, watchdog warns. CCHR says electroshock and other psychiatric treatments cause damage and tighter but safer controls need to be restored. A patient of Stepping Stones for Living, a for-profit group home in Hermantown, Minnesota died earlier this year after … Read more
I am writing this to let it be known, electroshock is a direct attack against life. I was born in 1930, into a musical family and I continued the tradition. I have played trumpet and other instruments with several jazz bands, have composed music and in short, have enjoyed a successful career as a musician. … Read more
I am writing this article to protect children and the elderly. I am the mother of five and after learning of the promotion of electroshock therapy (ECT) being used on children and the elderly, I want to sound an alarm by sharing my first-hand knowledge. I want to let others know what I went through … Read more
As a teenager, I was rebellious and got into a lot of trouble with the law. At just 16, I was sent to an adult mental hospital called St. Agnews and put into the criminal lock-up ward. For nine months I witnessed many atrocities committed by the psychiatric industry, and what they call “help.” This … Read more
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as “shock treatment,” is a procedure in which an electric current is passed through the patient’s head, causing a convulsive seizure. The theory is that violent convulsions can somehow “reset” the brain and relieve the symptoms of mental illness. There is no explanation of how or why this might work, … Read more
In an additional article to a multi-part series exposing the dangers of electroshock treatment (ECT), Jan Eastgate, President of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) calls for an overhaul of the Food and Drug Administration. In December 2018, the FDA reduced the risk classification of the electroshock device so that it could be … Read more