Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 08:19:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Tom Blancato <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com>
Subject: Re: (Fwd) STOP FORCED ELECTROSHOCK!


The "mind rape" involved seems, like almost everything taking place in 
the incredibly reductive "psychiatry" developing in a threatening and 
truly monstrous silence today, to arise out of the *philosophy* that is 
dispensed along with various "treatments". For a vast range of 
conditions, experiences, etc., a single term is being used, more and 
more, and in a genuinely fascistic style: NBD, or neuro-biological 
disorder. Regarding ECT, apparently there is *very little* good 
substantiation of what the actual effects are. But, again, what is also 
involved is an *implicit* philosophy of causality that is surreptitiously 
imposed (on people in dire need). The same goes for pcychotropic 
"treatment", which has the character of chemical lobotomies. Those voices 
which rebel most loudly are disappeard, along with the speaker, by drugs 
which have profound effects on experience. 



______________________________________________________________________
"If you find me this evening speaking without reserve, pray
consider that you are only sharing the thoughts of a man who
allows himself to think audibly, and if you think that I seem
to transgress the limits that courtesy imposes upon me, pardon
me for the liberty I may be taking."
 
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, in a speech at the opening of the Hindu
University Central College, 1916
______________________________________________________________________

On Sat, 9 Mar 1996, Elizabeth Harrison wrote:

>    The plea to the deleuze-guattari subscribers regarding forced 
> electroconvulsive schock therapy (ECT) is misleading and, in my 
> opinion dangerous for several reasons.   
>    The authors state that the death rate in elders receiving ECT is 
> higher than reported.  What they have left out is the cause of death, was 
> it ECT or another problem?  The plea also stated that it may cause long 
> term memory loss.  I have been unable to find any sources that reinforce 
> this notion.  ECT causes short term memory loss which clears after the 
> course of treatments is completed.
>    It is true that the Clinton administration is opposed to forced human 
> experiments.  Electroconvulsive therapy, however, is not an experiment. 
> It may seem quite barbaric to those who do not understand it or have 
> never witness its benefial results.  It is not a mind rape but has 
> improved or restored well-being to countless numbers of severely 
> depressed individuals.  The descriptions of people passionately resisting 
> therapy seem overstated since, as I have just said, it is used on 
> individuals who are immobilized by their depression.  Finally I would 
> challenge the statistic validity of the conclusions of most any of the 
> statments in the plea. ECT an effective therapy rarely used today that 
> seems poorly understood by the authors of this request for lobbying.
> S.
> 

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