Not a Joke: Electroconvulsive Therapy Recommended for Children

by | Jun 23, 2015

Children and ECT

Children and ECT

Psychiatry’s insistence on injurious treatment is reason enough to ban their profession. Our children must be protected from their experimentation and abuse.


ECT is described by psychiatric whistleblower Peter Breggin as “a psychiatric treatment in which electricity is applied to the head and passed through the brain to produce a grand mal or major convulsion. The seizure brought about by the electric stimulus closely resembles, but is more rigorous or strenuous than that found in idiopathic epilepsy or in epilepsy following a wide variety of insults to the brain.”
Permanent Damage Caused by ECT
Dr. Breggin points out that ECT damages the brain and the mind, often causing permanent gaps in memory for important events in the patient’s life, his educational background and his professional skills. There have been cases where people have actually lost their identity. He goes on to state that these victims of ECT suffer from continuing cognitive difficulties, and unwanted personality changes. Going above and beyond the call of duty, Dr. Breggin has created a free ECT Resources Center to help patients and their families recognize the danger of this so-called “treatment.”
The Man Who Wants to Electroshock Children
There are very few psychiatrists who are willing to point out the dangers of this barbaric practice. In fact, there is one man who highly recommends the treatment… for children. Dr. Edward Shorter, ECT proponent, writes in the online Psychology Today publication: “There has been an unwritten taboo in psychiatry, and a reaction of shock and horror in the general population, to the idea of giving convulsive therapy to those under 18. “But is this unfavorable reaction wise? Are we denying children access to a treatment that is safe and effective in adults?” (One wonders how willingly Dr. Shorter himself would submit to this “safe and effective” treatment.) He continues: “This denial is not compatible with good medical ethics, which demand that we make effective treatments of proven benefit available to all, regardless of social class, gender, economic status, or age. We do not deny the elderly hip transplants or heart transplants because they are elderly. “But we deny children access to convulsive therapy…This is ageism in reverse, and terribly unfair.” This is not a tongue-in-cheek opinion, but the actual words of a published psychiatrist. Why all this denial of electro shock therapy’s use on children? Dr. Shorter partially blames the parents for their “prejudice” against this torturing of their offspring.
The Penicillin of Psychiatry
In an unintentional slam against his own profession, Dr. Shorter declares that “Convulsive therapy is the penicillin of psychiatry.” Many would agree that a barbaric practice originally used on pigs bound for slaughter would equal psychiatry’s version of a miracle cure. Here is one adult’s recollection of the ECT treatment he received as a child: “I was six years old [in 1944]. My mother had been locked up in a mental hospital just before I was born, and I was a ward of the state. A psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital in New York, Dr. Lauretta Bender, had just begun her infamous series of experiments with shock treatment on children, and she needed more subjects. So I was diagnosed as a “childhood schizophrenic,” torn away from my foster parents, and given 20 shock treatments… I was dragged down the hallway crying, a handkerchief stuffed in my mouth so I wouldn’t bite off my tongue. And I woke [after the shock treatment] not knowing where I was or who I was, but feeling as if I had undergone the experience of death. After four months of this. I was returned to my foster home. Shock treatment had changed me from a shy little boy who liked to sit in a corner and read to a terrified child who would only cling to his foster mother and cry. I couldn’t remember my teachers. I couldn’t remember the little boy I was told had been my best friend. I couldn’t even find my way around my own neighborhood. The social worker who visited every month told my foster parents that my memory loss was a symptom of my mental illness. A few months later, I was shipped to a state hospital to spend the next 10 years of my life.” Psychiatry’s insistence on injurious treatment is reason enough to ban their profession. Our children must be protected from their experimentation and abuse.
SOURCES:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201312/electroconvulsive-therapy-in-children http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40 http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/02/electroshocking-children-stopped/

4 Comments

  1. Gary Mead

    Only psychopathic, inhuman, entities with no conscience (buried due to their heinous crimes against humanity) would advocate devastating shock “treatment” for any life form.

    Reply
  2. don

    Psychiatry think of us as animals. Only ANIMALS can do such horrific acts against children!

    Reply
  3. Children's Rights

    Once again, “ward of the state,” in any way profiteers can make this possible, even initially as “temporarily” and just long enough to sink their claws in tight. Can anyone prevent this? The battle for children’s rights is against a huge financially incentivized monster. Until we realize the system by which children lose their rights, nothing can be done to stop this from occurring in mass.
    Children have rights in print under constitutional, international, and surprisingly, even state law; yet unfortunately, they do not have any real rights in Florida. Do you realize it is clearly written that children even have the right to be free from exploitation? The only solution that comes to mind when hearing how “wards of the state” are so atrociously abused is to protect parental rights in effecting children’s rights. Only prevention works… while “wards of the state” are riddled with abuse that lasts a lifetime.
    “Medical” “solutions” such as presented in this article can only be viciously wielded against children when parents are cut out of the picture, and those who profit from such crime know this, apparently including Dr. Shorter of this article.
    More solutions:
    Offer legal support and advice
    Go to dependency courts and watch them – demand due process
    Do not be afraid now or your family’s children will be next; the system is only set up to sustainably grow
    Get involved when your neighbors are under attack
    Post articles, post comments and call in to the media
    Spread around articles about such systemic child abuse
    Speak up against the “local house for [abusing] the children” that requires child enslavement of wards of the state for forced “program” participation

    Reply
    • Children's Rights

      Edit: “or your family’s children will be next” to “or your family’s children may be next”

Leave a Reply

Archives

Contact CCHR Florida

109 N. Fort Harrison Ave.
Clearwater, Florida 33755
Tel: 1-800-782-2878