Mental health boss defends use of controversial ECT shock therapy for depression
The treatment involves sending an electric current through a patient s brain.
Updated
direct to your inboxInvalid EmailSomething went wrong, please try again later.
Click here
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Your information will be used in accordance with ourPrivacy Notice.
Thank you for subscribingWe have more newslettersShow meSee ourprivacy notice
A Greater Manchester mental health chief has defended the use of a controversial treatment which involves running an electrical current through patients brains.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - formerly known as shock or electroshock therapy - has been used since the 1930s but is now being heavily criticised by experts who question the evidence behind it.
Submitting.
Last week I met with the South Yorkshire Eating Disorders Association (SYEDA), who provide support and early intervention for people with eating disorders and their carers. They have been forced to stop advertising their services, for fear of creating an even longer waiting list. One employee told me how wrong it felt to have to tell people who have disclosed personal information about their eating disorder that they have to wait 6-7 months before getting support.
Yet despite this bleak picture, every specialist I spoke to was clear: this crisis is not new. Well before the pandemic, our country faced a mental health crisis and demand for specialist services outstripped capacity. Chronically underfunded and overstretched, having borne the brunt of a decade of austerity, these services are doing an amazing job despite the circumstances. But the pandemic has accelerated a worrying upward trend in referrals, and the funding is just not there to deal with the scale of crisis
Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based? (Part 8)
150
Editor’s Note: Over the next several months, Mad in America will publish a serialized version of Peter Gøtzsche’s book, Mental Health Survival Kit and Withdrawal from Psychiatric Drugs
. In this blog, he discusses psychiatry’s resistance to admitting to withdrawal effects, as well as the way doctors and scientists are treated when they critique the establishment. Each Monday, a new section of the book will be published, and all chapters will be archived
False information on withdrawal from UK psychiatrists
In 2020, I co-authored a paper written by psychology professor John Read, “Why did official accounts of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms differ so much from research findings and patients’ experiences?”
No good evidence for long-term use of antidepressants heraldscotland.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heraldscotland.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Hundreds of North East children hospitalised due to mental health conditions, new figures show
Doctors say young people are bearing the brunt of a mental health crisis caused by the pandemic and are asking for funding to urgently reach the frontline
Get
the latest North East news and updates delivered straight to your inbox Invalid EmailSomething went wrong, please try again later.
Subscribe
When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Your information will be used in accordance with ourPrivacy Notice.
Thank you for subscribingWe have more newslettersShow meSee ourprivacy notice
Hundreds of children in the North East are hospitalised by mental health conditions, self harm and eating disorders every year - and the number could rise as services are pushed to breaking point.