Encouraged by its decline, CCHR, a patients’ rights watchdog, launches a series exposing the downfall of electroshock treatment and its long-term dangers, including brain injury.

By Jan Eastgate
President, CCHR International
August 23, 2024

CCHR International, which was among the groups that first helped get electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) banned on minors in California nearly 50 years ago, hails the current decline in psychiatric use of what it calls “shock torture.” Fewer psychiatrists are willing to administer ECT and in October 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that there has been a dramatic decline in its use.[1]

The growing consumer awareness and court rulings on informed consent—making electroshock device manufacturers liable for failing to inform of brain damage—could sound the practice’s death knell, and, according to some advocates, it is nearly on the brink of disappearing—an action CCHR strongly encourages.

The claim psychiatrists make that 100,000 Americans receive electroshock treatment annually is refutable because that figure is based on a study that is 30 years old.[2] No federal agency or psychiatric association tracks the number of people electroshocked, despite the practice being acknowledged as causing severe memory loss and brain damage.[3] It has often fallen to CCHR to obtain the information through Freedom of Information Act requests to each state.  

CCHR has obtained a sample of 27 states providing statistics on the use of ECT under Medicaid in 2023, which revealed only 3,641 people given it at a cost of nearly $9 million—no longer the multi-billion-dollar money spinner it has been for the mental health industry in the past. Compared to statistics obtained for 2020, for example, Vermont decreased its use by 57.7% and Massachusetts by 40.4%.

“The truth is that a very small minority in the medical community still accept and strongly advocate for ECT shock therapy,” according to one Los Angeles law firm litigating on behalf of ECT survivors. “It was recently estimated that fewer than 1,000 psychiatrists practice ECT in the U.S., out of a national total of approximately 49,000 psychiatrists.”[4]

Psychiatry Inflicts Torture

CCHR has recently shared its documentary, Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock, with thousands of attorneys and psychiatrists nationwide. It has also launched a new educational campaign aimed at debunking psychiatric myths about ECT, particularly the claim that it ‘saves lives,’ providing facts often withheld from patients undergoing the treatment.

Many states allow for involuntary ECT but do not keep statistics on this, despite the United Nations Convention against Torture condemning the practice. The US is a signatory to the convention, and it is applicable in domestic law. A July 2018 UN Human Rights Council report determined that forced ECT constitutes “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”[5]

The practice, which involves up to 460 volts of electricity sent through the brain, causes a grand mal seizure. The WHO and OHCHR guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights, and Legislation reiterates that ECT without consent “may constitute torture and ill-treatment.”[6] A ground-breaking New Zealand report in 2022, which CCHR had spent decades obtaining, defined ECT as torture based on three elements—(1) the infliction of severe pain and suffering, (2) by a person acting on behalf of the State, (3) for the purpose of punishment.[7]

In the U.S., any ECT administered under government health insurance such as Medicaid and Medicare could fall under point 2, given without proper consent or forced on an individual, this constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment or punishment.

In 2024, the New Zealand government formally accepted the “undisputed evidence” that, based on the criteria set out in the UN convention on torture, children and young people were tortured with ECT at the country’s now-closed Lake Alice psychiatric hospital.[8]

Worldwide Call to Ban Brain-Damaging ECT

The WHO-OHCHR report notes: “In Slovenia and Luxembourg, ECT is not available.”[9] It highlighted that “there have been calls for it to be banned altogether,” and that without this, patients must be made aware of “potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage.”[10] [Emphasis added]

In the 1990s, CCHR Australia secured a New South Wales Royal Commission inquiry into a deadly “deep sleep treatment” that combined lethal doses of psychotropic drugs and electroshock. Justice John Slattery, overseeing that inquiry, determined that ECT without patient consent or after obtaining consent by use of fraud and deceit commits “a trespass to the person” and is “responsible for an assault on them.”[11]

In October 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that an ECT device manufactured by Somatics, LLC, caused brain injury.[12] Somatics settled the case and then posted on its website that ECT may cause permanent brain damage.[13]

On June 20, 2024, the California Supreme Court made another landmark decision that a patient could sue the manufacturer for not giving a stronger warning about risks. Specifically, the defendant, Somatics LLC, which did not dispute in the lower court that its ECT device can cause brain damage and permanent memory loss, did not dispute it failed to warn doctors of the risk of brain damage and permanent memory loss.[14]

According to the law firm litigating the case, “The ruling confirms that patient autonomy remains sacrosanct.”[15]

However, instead of recognizing this as a blessing for patient’s rights, ECT device manufacturers saw it as delivering a “killing blow” to their enterprise and electroshock.

Somatics’ decision to post the brain damage warning in 2018 was driven by self-preservation rather than patient safety. During a deposition, it was revealed that Dr. Conrad Swartz, psychiatrist, co-founder, and CEO of Somatics, wrote in an email to co-owner, psychiatrist Richard Abrams, “The goals of the warning statement we need to make [re permanent memory loss and brain damage] are one, to prevent lawsuits, and two, not alienate psychiatrists.” Further, “Loss of memories is more accurate than memory loss, which smells of dementia. Loss of memories is subjective and does not reflect brain damage.”[16] In other words, Somatics crafted this disclaimer to protect the company, not the patients.

A History of Harming Pigs and Humans

Electroshock was first discovered in 1938 by Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti while using it on pigs in a Rome slaughterhouse to quell their fear of being killed. Cerletti understood the effects ECT had when he experimented on his patients: “When I saw the patient’s reaction I thought to myself: this ought to be abolished!”[17] Eighty-five years later, psychiatrists remain fixated on electroshocking pigs.

In a 2023 study, Dr. Swartzand colleagues shocked a pork shoulder to measure the temperature rise at the electrodes, attempting to disprove cellular brain damage. Thermographic images were recorded before and after ECT stimuli were applied to the pork shoulder.[18]

Kenneth Castleman Ph.D. explains how ECT causes cell death. He holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and served on the faculty at Caltech and the University of Texas, and was on the research staff at USC and UCLA. He also served on advisory committees for The National Institutes of Health, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He states:

“Two things happen when an electric current flow through the brain. The first is heating. Electrical energy is converted into heat inside the brain, raising its temperature. The larger the current, the more heat is produced. If the temperature gets too high the cells will suffer temporary injury, permanent damage, or even death. It is the cell wall (membrane) that holds the cell’s contents inside and keeps everything else out. This membrane contains electrically charged molecules (small groups of atoms) which are also affected by the ECT-produced electric field. If the voltage is high enough, the resulting forces can tear holes (‘pores’) in the cell wall. This process is called ‘electroporation,’ the production of pores by electrical means. It is the second effect that electricity can have on the brain. If the voltage is high enough, however, the holes produced are too many and too large, thereby overwhelming the repair mechanism. Toxic material rushes in, and the cell dies. ECT risks brain cell damage both from heating and from electroporation. Modern Ultra-Brief-Pulse ECT devices are much more likely to cause electroporation than those used in the past.”[19]

A Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences study on electrical injury, published in 2009, supports this. It notes: “Four mechanisms of cellular injury by electricity are presently known. They are the direct effects of the current, thermal burns, mechanical injury due to falls, and electroporation.” Electricity “can directly cause pore formation in the lipid bilayers [cell-membrane structure[20]] that form cell membranes, a process called electroporation.”

“More recently, electroporation has been identified as the cause of the more rapid and diffuse necrosis associated with electrical injury”— necrosis being the death of most or all of the cells in an organ or tissue due to disease, injury, or failure of the blood supply.[21] Thermal injuries may only be on the surface or may extend deep into the tissue.[22]

Dr. Bennet Omalu, Clinical Pathologist, Anatomic Pathologist, Forensic Pathologist, Neuropathologist, and Epidemiologist, a Clinical Professor at the Department of Medical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Davis, was the first person to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (brain disease) in football players.[23]

According to Dr. Omalu: “The amounts of electrical energy introduced to the human brain by ECT machines can be nothing but harmful and dangerous.” The amount of electrical energy imparted “will no doubt, and are in fact expected to cause cellular physiologic, biochemical, and anatomic injuries to the human brain.” Since ECT-induced electrical injuries “occur repeatedly over time, the patient who receives ECT therapy will manifest permanent and cumulative brain injury, which can be progressive over time and result in chronic encephalopathies and brain degeneration. Such brain degeneration can manifest with multi-domain neurological impairments including cognitive impairment, mood disorders and neuro-psychiatric impairment, behavioral impairment, motor disorders and other somatic symptoms and signs.” [24]

Swartz’s study findings are self-serving and should be retracted. Under deposition, he has made some damning admissions, including, “The numerous alterations in the hippocampus with ECT suggest…that the hippocampus may be involved in ECT cognitive effects, side effects….”[25] The hippocampus is said to play an important role in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory.[26]

Also under deposition, Dr. Abrams admitted that Somatics has never undertaken any clinical trials to determine the safety and efficacy of its ECT machines, nor into any long-term side effects associated with ECT, because “that’s not our business.” Nor is the company “in the business of doing studies of traumatic brain injury.” Asked about how long a seizure from its machine should last, he said at least 30 seconds, but this was a “clinical rule of thumb…plucked out of the air, as far as I know….”[27] [Emphasis added]

When asked if he understood the mechanics of how ECT works, Abrams responded: “I do not.”[28] Yet, Abrams claims that ECT is about 10 times safer than childbirth.[29]

He agreed that other practitioners of ECT also still do not know how it “works.”[30]

A Psychiatric News article concedes this: “We don’t know exactly how electroconvulsive therapy works…. At least a dozen theories have been proposed…but few, if any, have found much acceptance.” One theory was that “ECT caused a good kind of brain damage.”[31]

According to a Citizen Petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) submitted in 2016, the president of Mecta Corp, another U.S. ECT device maker, had the view that “if patients claim to have brain damage or to have lost large chapters of the memories of their lives, they must be lying.”[32]

With such beliefs, it is no wonder that in 2021, Mecta filed for bankruptcy, after losing liability coverage for its ECT device. The struggling business reinvented itself as SigmaStim. In 2019, it obtained clearance (not approval) from the FDA for a replacement ECT device it calls ∑igma™ (pronounced Sigma).

Electroshock Creates Suicide

Recently Adrian Kettering, the CEO of SigmaStim, claimed ECT is a treatment that is saving many lives. That is another myth—the company does not, nor ever has, conducted any clinical studies on the safety and efficacy of its device.

• In a 2020 study, over 14,800 ECT patients were 16 times more likely to try to commit suicide than a control group of 58,369.[33]

• An Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica study published in 2023 reported that after receiving electroshock, patients were 44 times more likely to die by suicide than people in the general population.[34] In another study, the suicide death for those who received ECT was 137.34 deaths per 10,000 within 30 days of receiving it and 804.39 per 10,000 within a year following ECT.[35]

It is hardly life-saving given what its premier advocates admit.

• Dr. Max Fink, a U.S. professor of psychiatry and ardent electroshock advocate, admitted: “The principle complications of electroshock therapy are deaths, brain damage, memory impairment and spontaneous seizures. These complications are similar to those seen after head trauma, with which [ECT] has been compared.”[36]

• Foremost ECT researcher, psychologist Harold Sackeim, Professor of Psychiatry and Radiology at Columbia University and Chief of Biological Psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and colleagues conceded that ECT may cause permanent amnesia and permanent deficits in cognitive abilities, which affect the ability to function.[37]

Electroshock’s Nazi Past

Sackeim says his fascination with ECT stemmed from the Holocaust and his parents’ survival of this horror, which inspired him to pursue ECT for its so-called “humanistic aspects.”

Yet, electroshock was a tool of Nazi psychiatrists. In 2017, researchers Lara Rzesnitzek and Sascha Lang, writing in a Cambridge University Press journal, reported that within the Third Reich, “electroshock therapy was not only introduced in psychiatric hospitals, asylums, and in the Auschwitz concentration camp in order to get patients back to work. It was also modified for ‘euthanasia’ murder.”[38]

An electroshock apparatus was constructed in 1944 at Auschwitz III, the concentration camp that served as the working camp of the chemical company IG Farben-Werk that manufactured Zyklon B used to kill in the gas chambers in Monowitz concentration camp. The camp was run by physicians Eduard Wirths (1909-1945) and Horst Fischer (1912-1966) who used electroshock on prisoners to “make emotionally disturbed people fit for work again.” Both doctors were members of the SS (Schutzstaffel – German for “Protective Echelon,” one of the most feared organizations in all of Nazi Germany).[39]

The provision of asylums with electroshock equipment was pursued by the Reich Commissioner and the Fuhrer’s Office as particularly “important to the war effort.” In 1943 and 1944, nearly all public asylums in Germany received ECT equipment.[40]

More Damage, More Disinformation Given Patients

The bottom line is that ECT today can cause brain damage, permanent memory loss and neurocognitive injury.[41] The Cleveland Clinic notes that seizures from ECT typically last between 30 and 90 seconds.[42]

In epilepsy, most seizures last from 30 seconds to two minutes.[43] According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “During a seizure, many neurons send signals at the same time, much faster than normal. This surge of excessive electrical activity may cause involuntary movements, sensations, emotions, and/or behaviors. The disturbance of normal nerve cell activity may cause a loss of awareness.”[44]

Common sense, therefore, would tell you to prevent seizures at all costs. Indeed, there are more than 40 different antiseizure medications aimed at doing that.[45] Yet, psychiatrists and ECT device manufacturers want patients to ignore the risks and mislead them by saying ECT does not cause brain damage.

However, Dr. Omalu provides a stark reminder when referring to ECT:“A seizure is not a normal event in the human brain … As a normal human being, you should not have a seizure ever in your life. So a seizure being abnormal is a symptom manifesting brain injury…it is a manifestation of brain injury and brain damage.”[46]

Sydney Samant, M.D., a neurologist and electroencephalographer who measures electrical activity in different parts of the brain, was quoted in Clinical Psychiatry News: “I have no doubt that ECT produces effects identical to those of a head injury…. After a few sessions of ECT the symptoms are those of moderate cerebral contusion, and further enthusiastic use of ECT may result in the patient functioning at a subhuman level. Electroconvulsive therapy in effect may be defined as a controlled type of brain damage produced by electrical means.”[47]

The study, “Shock treatment, brain damage, and memory loss: a neurological perspective,” published in The American Journal of Psychiatry,” found: “ECT produces characteristic EEG changes and severe retrograde amnesia, as well as other more subtle effects on memory and learning.” The author concluded that ECT results in brain disease and questioned why doctors would offer brain damage to their patients.[48]

In his article titled “Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Critical Perspective,” published in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Australian psychiatrist Dr. Niall McClaren advised:

• “Ideally, all patients advised to have ECT should be told that while their psychiatrist advises it, other psychiatrists in the same town would not; while, in some countries, it is so severely restricted that the question would not arise… whether patients get ECT or not is not a matter of science, it is a matter of the psychiatrist’s personal predilection, meaning chance.[49]

• “A psychiatrist who says to a depressed patient ‘You must have ECT, it is irreplaceable in your case,’ is saying only one of three things: 1. ‘I am firmly committed to the concept of depression as a genetically determined, biological disease of the brain and, as such, I believe that physical methods of management are irreplaceable.’ 2. ‘I have tried everything I can but I have reached the limit of my skill set. I don’t know what else to do.’…  3. ‘It pays well.’” [50]

That psychiatrists believe they have the right to withhold vital facts about the potential for brain damage in patients from ECT constitutes fraud. Some claim that modern ECT is less brutal than how it was portrayed in the Academy-Award-winning film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975 when actor Jack Nicholson’s character was shocked without anesthetic and muscle relaxant while in an institution.[51] However, the voltage and amperage used in today’s ECT machine are actually higher than in the past.

It is astonishing how fiercely CCHR and electroshock survivors have been fought against for advocating patients’ rights to informed consent and protection from electroshock. Our goal is not only to ensure patients are informed but to remove electroshock entirely from the repertoire of biomedical interventions that cause harm rather than healing.

The WHO-OHCHR recommends: “A person must not administer to, or perform on, another person any of the following—(a) deep sleep therapy; b) insulin coma therapy; (c) psychosurgery; and (d) any other operation or treatment proscribed by regulations.”[52]

CCHR calls for electroshock treatment to be banned under state and federal law. As stated earlier, CCHR helped achieve a ban on the use of electroshock on children and adolescents in California in 1976. Three more laws were passed prohibiting pediatric ECT, with the most stringent protections enacted in Texas in 1993.

As such, there is precedent law supporting bills prohibiting ECT’s use, which must be a complete ban for all ages.

In New South Wales, CCHR had deep sleep treatment banned with criminal penalties should it be administered.[53] In 2014 West Australia prohibited ECT on those younger than 14, with a penalty of two years imprisonment and a fine if ECT is administered.[54]

In the face of psychiatry’s lies and disinformation about ECT, this is the level of deterrent needed to protect people’s mental health and lives.

Despite its historical use and the claims of its proponents, the mounting evidence of ECT’s potential for brain damage and long-term adverse effects challenges its continued use. And the declining number of psychiatrists willing to subject patients also makes the practice redundant.  

The WHO-OHCHR guidance points out that the biomedical model “works to the detriment of other holistic and person-centered and rights-based approaches and strategies.’”[55] Further, laws should “transition away from a narrow emphasis on biomedical approaches towards a more holistic and inclusive understanding of mental health.” (Page 4 of guidance)

Those rights include the right to civilly sue for compensation when the treatment is harmful. As the guidance states: “Access to justice is also essential to accountability. It allows persons interacting with mental health services to challenge human rights violations and to enforce rights, including the right to an effective remedy…. Effective remedies also entail the duty to investigate and bring to justice those who are responsible, to hold them to account, combat impunity and prevent repetition of violations.” (Page 29)

The dedication of organizations like CCHR, combined with growing consumer awareness and evolving legal standards, marks a significant shift towards prioritizing patient safety, informed consent and the right to refuse damaging mental health practices. In confronting the misinformation surrounding ECT, this heightened scrutiny is crucial for safeguarding mental health, which can also be achieved by prohibiting harmful practices to ensure workable help that truly serves the best interests of patients.

If you or someone you know has been harmed or damaged by electroshock, please submit a report to CCHR here.

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[1] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices/

[2] Richard C. Hermann, et al., “Variation in ECT Use in the United States,” The American Journal of Psychiatry, 152:6, Jun 1995, http://www.cqaimh.org/Hermann.ECT.1995.pdf

[3] Prof. John Read, “Patients Are Being Misinformed About Electroconvulsive Therapy,” Psychology Today. 15 June 2021, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202106/patients-are-being-misinformed-about

[4] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[5] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/05/18/protestors-at-us-psychiatric-convention-rally-for-ban-on-torturous-electroshock/; “Mental health and human rights: Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development,” Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, Human Rights Council, 10-28 Sept. 2018, p. 14, point 46, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G18/232/93/PDF/G1823293.pdf?OpenElement  

[6] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices/

[7] Ric Stevens, “Royal Commission of Inquiry into state care finds Lake Alice children were tortured,” NZ Herald, 14 Dec. 2022, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/royal-commission-of-inquiry-into-state-care-finds-lake-alice-children-were-tortured/ZB3EVQL765ATLMDKSX6XHSTXEA/

[8] David Williams, “Torture at Lake Alice admitted to UN for first time,” Newsroom (NZ), 19 Aug. 2024, https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/08/20/torture-at-lake-alice-admitted-to-un-for-first-time/

[9] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices/

[10] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/05/03/cchr-says-mental-health-awareness-month-should-support-a-ban-on-electroshock/, citing World Health Organization, OHCHR, “Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation,” 9 Oct. 2023; “New WHO Mental Health Guideline Condemns Coercive Psychiatric Practices,” Summary of the Guidance; https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices/

[11] The Hon. Mr. Acting Justice, J.P. Slattery, A.O., “Report of the Royal Commission into Deep Sleep Therapy,” NSW Royal Commission, Vol. 6, 1990, p. 96

[12]https://truthaboutect.org/electroshock-the-redefinition-of-assault-and-battery/#_edn2 citing: David Karen, “ECT Litigation Update: Are Patients Being Warned of Brain Damage Risk?” MAD, 13 June 2019, https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/06/ect-litigation-patients-not-warned-brain-damage-risk/

[13] http://www.thymatron.com/catalog_cautions.asp

[14] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2024/june/wisner-baum-prevails-in-landmark-win-for-patient/

[15] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2024/june/wisner-baum-prevails-in-landmark-win-for-patient/

[16] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/

[17] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[18] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36988459/

[19] On file, CCHR Int

[20] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26871/

[21] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23959-necrosis; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26871/

[22] Brandon C. Bryan, et, al, “Electrical Injury, Part 1 : Mechanisms,” Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Vol.1, No. 3, 1 July 2009, https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/jnp.2009.21.3.iv

[23] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[24] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[25] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/

[26] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/hippocampus

[27] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/

[28] Electroshock: The Redefinition of Assault and Battery as “Therapy” and Torture as Treatment | TruthAboutECT.org citing: Deposition from Richard Abrams in the matter of Jose Riera vs. Somatics, LLC, 2 Aug. 2018

[29] Richard Abrams, M.D., “The Mortality Rate with ECT,” Convulsive Therapy, 1997 (one of the articles FDA relied upon for re-classification of the ECT device)

[30] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/

[31] https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2016.4b2 ; “Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Devices for Class II Intended Uses,” Draft Guidance for Industry, Clinicians and FDA Staff, 29 Dec. 2015, http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/…/UCM478942.pdf

[32] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[33] https://truthaboutect.org/new-study-tells-consumers-the-truth-of-potential-lethal-electroshock-and-antidepressant-risks/; John Read, Ph.D., Joanna Moncrief, M.D., “Depression: why drugs and electricity are not the answer,” Psychological Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/depression-why-drugs-and-electricity-are-not-the-answer/3197739131D795E326AE6913720E6E37

[34] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/02/28/electroshock-patients-44-times-more-likely-to-commit-suicide/; citing: Anders Spanggård, Christopher Rohde, Søren Dinesen Østergaard, “Risk factors for suicide among patients having received treatment with electroconvulsive therapy: A nationwide study of 11,780 patients,” Acta Psychiatria Scandinavia, 29 January 2023,  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/acps.13536

[35] https://truthaboutect.org/new-study-shows-high-number-of-suicides-after-electroshock/; Bradley V. Watts, MD, MPH, Talya Peltzman, MPH, and Brian Shiner, MD, MPH, “Electroconvulsive Therapy and Death by Suicide,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Apr. 2022, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35421285/; “ECT did not decrease risk for death by suicide compared with other mental health care,” Helio, 20 Jul. 2022, https://www.healio.com/news/psychiatry/20220720/ect-did-not-decrease-risk-for-death-by-suicide-compared-with-other-mental-health-care

[36] John M. Friedberg, M.D., Epitomizing the Myth of Mental Illness, Electroshock – Epitomizing the Myth,Address to the Szasz Symposium Liberty And/Or Psychiatry 40 Years After the Myth of Mental Illness, Syracuse, New York, 15 Apr. 2000

[37] John Breeding, Ph.D., “Electroshocking Children: Why It Should Be Stopped,” 11 Feb. 2014, https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/02/electroshocking-children-stopped/

[38] https://truthaboutect.org/camouflaging-electroshock-assault-as-therapy/ citing: Lara Rzesnitzekand Sascha Lang, ‘Electroshock Therapy’ in the Third Reich,” Med Hist. 2017 Jan; 61(1): 66–88, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5206950/

[39] https://truthaboutect.org/camouflaging-electroshock-assault-as-therapy/ citing: Lara Rzesnitzekand Sascha Lang, ‘Electroshock Therapy’ in the Third Reich,” Med Hist. 2017 Jan; 61(1): 66–88, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5206950/

[40] Gotz Aly, Peter Chroust and Christian Pross, Cleansing of the Fatherland, Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 205

[41] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[42] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/9302-ect-electroconvulsive-therapy

[43] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seizure/symptoms-causes/syc-20365711

[44] https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/epilepsy-and-seizures

[45] https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/epilepsy-and-seizures

[46] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2023/august/electroshock-therapy-ect-trial-jury-finds-somati/  

[47] https://truthaboutect.org/electroshock-the-redefinition-of-assault-and-battery/#_edn4 citing: Sydney Samant, Clinical Psychiatry News, Mar. 1983, http://www.ect.org/effects/psychnews.html

[48] https://truthaboutect.org/electroshock-the-redefinition-of-assault-and-battery/#_edn4 citing: “Shock treatment, brain damage, and memory loss: a neurological perspective,” The American Journal of Psychiatry, 1 Apr. 2006, https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/ajp.134.9.1010?journalCode=ajp

[49] Dr. Niall McClaren, “Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Critical Perspective,”  Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 19, Number 2, 2017

[50] Dr. Niall McClaren, “Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Critical Perspective,” Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol.19, Number 2, 2017

[51] https://www.cchrint.org/electroshock/

[52] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices; World Health Organization, OHCHR, “Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation,” Oct. 2023, p. 59

[53] Kim Forrester, Debra Griffiths, Essentials of Law for Medical Practitioners, (Churchill Livingston Elsevier, Sydney, New York, Philadelphia, London, 2011), p. 10

[54] “Electroshock therapy on under-14s banned in WA after law passes Parliament,” ABC News, 17 Oct. 2014, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-17/mental-health-bill-passes-wa-parliament/5822874

[55] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/09/18/who-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices/; World Health Organization, OHCHR, “Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation,” p. 13