Electroshock or electroconvulsive therapy involves the passage of an electrical current through the brain of the patient to produce a grand mal or major epileptic seizure. Sometimes the two electrodes are placed over both temples (bilateral shock) and sometimes over one side of the head (unilateral).

The shock induces an electrical storm that obliterates the normal electrical patterns in the brain, driving the recording needle on the EEG up and down in violent, jagged swings. This period of extreme bursts of electrical energy often is followed by a briefer period of absolutely no electrical activity, called the isoelectric phase. The brain waves become temporarily flat, exactly as in brain death, and it may be that cell death takes place at this time.

A shock-induced seizure is typically far more severe than those suffered during spontaneous epilepsy. In early times, when the shock patient's body was not paralyzed by pharmacological agents, it would undergo muscle spasm sufficiently violent at times to crack vertebrae and break limb bones.

excepted from Toxic Psychiatry, by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.

Jury Awards $635,000 in Shock Suit in June 2005.

Click here to read the complete article by Dr. Breggin on electroshock therapy.

Click here to read more by Dr. Breggin about electroshock (excerpted from his medical text Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry).

For more information about the hazards of electroshock and other psychiatric practices, join the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (click here).

Click here too connect with the psychiatric survivor support network, Support Coalition.

Click here to Learn more about Dr. Breggin's books Toxic Psychiatry, and Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Role of the FDA.