tly in the 90s and some people really do need such treatments as ECT to help. Electroshock therapy is not a popular practice in the mental illness treatment field. Many people still believe that it is barbaric and does not deserve a place in todays society. People still have dark and gory images of ECT from such books as One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, where ECT was graphically portrayed as a grisly machine that enhanced dementia. This is not necessarily true though, ECT is more safe and effective than alternative drugs used to treat these symptoms can become addictive and sometimes lethal, oh yes lethal! Maybe some day people will see electroshock therapy not as a danger, but as a productive way to rid mental illness. ECT may seem risky and dangerous at the time, but with science and technological advances improving daily, this could be a miracle cure for widespread mental illness that affects many different people all over the world. Electroshock TherapyElectroshock therapy what is it? How does it work? What is it used for and what comes from it? This paper will answer all of these questions and will also try to prove that electroshock therapy is useful and not as bad as it appears to be.Electroshock therapy is an old process of ridding schizophrenia, and depression, and suicidal tendencies. It is used when people with major depression are taking too many anti depressant drugs, cant take the side-effects of their medication, or they are taking too many drugs and anti-depressant drugs are too risky to take. It is also used to irradiate certain cases of schizophrenia and is being studied to treat dementia. (Mental Illness Assessment and Treatment p.78). Convulsive therapy using drugs rather than electricity was introduced in 1934 by Hungarian neuropsychiatrist Ladisles meduna , who speculated that seizures (similar to the ones occurring in epilepsy) could probably alleviate mental disorders. He based his theory on the beli...
