September 20, 2006
Isn't It Pretty To Think So?
I had forgotten that the New York Times recently ran an article on ECT, so thanks to Liz Spikol for writing about it. Judge the article on its own terms of course, but I think Liz is right that it downplays the drawbacks of that horrid procedure. (Here's another NYT ECT piece.)It is one that should never be forced upon another human being unless they are in some kind of free will position to consent to it. Even at its best, ECT wipes out peoples' short term memories and it's pretty well documented at this point that it may have led to Ernest Hemingway's demise. The great one said that ECT "put me out of business"—meaning it scrubbed his brain and took away his art. Soon after, he went and killed himself. That enough is fair warning.
Posted by Philip Dawdy at September 20, 2006 12:01 AM
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I wrote an article a couple of years ago, on someone with bipolar who had 17 ECT treatments.
Read it here (page 8):
http://www.nami-eastside.org/about/newsletter/nesnewsletter0705.pdf
For him it really helped -- though ECT does really scare me.
Nice reference from the Sun Also Rises, I've wondered too if that's what he'd say about ECT. Sounds about right.
