Shock Treatment to Be Unplugged?

Conclusion

Motion not carried

We would not have expected a debate on ECT at the Institute of Psychiatry - a bastion of orthodox psychiatry in the UK, to have come out against it. Although there were a considerable number of user/survivors in the audience, the overall result was not really surprising. However the non-voters and people who abstained at the beginning and then added to the anti-ECT lobby - which showed a significant rise at the end was surprising. Perhaps floaters were persuaded by the arguments of Judi Clements and Lucy Johnstone which were better presented. Perhaps they were persuaded too by the testimony of survivors which rarely seems to filter through to psychiatrists.

However user/survivors afterwards observed that this was not a motion that it was easy to vote for because it was not framed accurately enough. There are many people who consider that ECT is harmful, crude and even barbaric. But there are very few who consider it totally ineffective.

Afterwards users speculated that a better Motion would have been: This house believes that ECT is a crude treatment which is too risky to continue because its effectiveness for some, is outweighed by the permanent harm that it does to many. And tantalisingly, would such a Motion have been passed at the Institute? More excitingly though, user/survivors are rubbing their eyes in disbelief as some see a powerful wind of change blowing through psychiatry. Fuelled by Government pressures, constant survivor nagging, and fired internally by the new wave of Critical Psychiatry, this could be something big - only time will tell. But Professor Robin Murray, incoming Chair of the Institute was observed to vote for the Motion that ECT is barbaric and ineffective.

Mark Roberts - Common Agenda Project Worker - GLAD

next: New Figures Show Doctors Give 1,300 ECT Treatments Every Week