July 18, 2001

John Breeding, Ph.D.
2503 Douglas St.
Austin, Texas 78741
(512) 326-8326
www.wildestcolts.com

My name is John Breeding. I am a psychologist from Austin, Texas. I testified in New York at the hearing in May on forced electroshock, and I am grateful to Assemblyman Luster for his enlightened leadership and determination to investigate electroshock practice in New York State. I am also grateful to Assemblyman Ortiz for his resolve and leadership in proposing electroshock legislation, and to all the other committee members for their concern about this issue.

Electroshock is practiced throughout the United States. Texas, where I come from, has perhaps the strongest controls of any state, including a reporting law, an emphatic demand for informed consent for ECT, and a ban on the treatment for children under 16. New York is unique, however, in that key research institutes, such as those at Columbia University and the New York Psychiatric Institute are located here, as are the electroshock industry leaders who work at those institutions. So the Assembly's acknowledgment of the need for investigation and consideration of legislative oversight and control of psychiatric electroshock practice is especially important.

As a psychologist, I have worked with a number of victims of electroshock. I have been on the advisory board of the World Association of Electroshock Survivors, an organization consisting of individuals who have undergone electroshock and who are now working to ban this procedure. I implore you to understand the significance of this group and others like it, such as the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry, based in New York City and the larger Support Coalition International. Electroshock Survivors from these groups are actively organizing to outlaw a "treatment" which their doctors declared was necessary and would help them, even in some cases--to the point of forcing it on them against their will! As I said in my earlier testimony, if thousands of the patients receiving a standard medical procedure for a physical illness had organized themselves to ban that procedure, there would surely be a serious reevaluation of the procedure and probably a complete moratorium until a proper investigation was completed.

Electroshock and Informed Consent

Today, per Assemblyman Luster's request, I will focus on informed consent.

A recent article of mine, called, "Electroshock and Informed Consent," is attached to this testimony. The article cites research that substantiates all of its points, including the following:

Electroshock causes death. Psychiatry often says 1 in 10,000. The truth is a much higher death rate; some studies show 1 in 200.

Electroshock always causes brain damage. The question is only how much.

Electroshock always causes memory loss. The question is only how much.

Electroshock does not prevent suicide.

Electroshock has no beneficial effects. (The supposed short-term benefits are in reality the immediate sign of brain damage.)

Electroshock often results in cardiovascular complications or epilepsy.

Electroshock poses extra risks for the elderly, who bear the brunt of the treatments, including higher mortality rates.

Genuine informed consent must include the seven facts cited above, and a good deal more. Regrettably, even the appearance of informed consent does not guarantee its reality. Let me briefly describe four of the many ways in which psychiatry systematically violates informed consent.

First, there is denial and minimization of harmful effects. The American Psychiatric Association 2001 Task Force Report on The Practice of Electroconvulsive Therapy states that "in light of the accumulated body of data dealing with structural effects of ECT, brain damage should not be included [in the ECT consent form] as a potential risk of treatment"(p. 102). This same report also states that, "a reasonable current estimate is that the rate of ECT-related mortality is 1 per 10,000 patients" (p. 59). The truth, as I said earlier, is a much higher rate. So the APA recommends that patients be misinformed about two of electroshock's most serious potential risks. This is gross deception. Psychiatry's professional organization gives no credence to the numerous human autopsies, brainwave studies, animal studies, clinical observations, and reports from electroshock subjects clearly demonstrating electroshock's brain-damaging effects. Nor does the APA offer any documentation substantiating its claim that electroshock's mortality rate is "1 per 10,000 patients."

The second way that informed consent exists only in name is that even minimal and inadequate guidelines for the administration of ECT are routinely and systematically violated. For example, a 1995 report by the Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy thoroughly documents pervasive and systematic violations of that state's informed consent guidelines on ECT. A 1987 study by Benedict and Saks of the regulation of professional behavior regarding ECT in Massachusetts showed that "approximately 90% of ECT patients received treatment inappropriately, suggesting that the regulation of ECT administration is ineffective." Interestingly, the authors also reported that "the more familiar a psychiatrist was with threatened or instituted lawsuits involving ECT, and the more likely a lawsuit was thought to be, the greater was his or her departure from the guidelines." From this statement alone, I hope you will see why your investigation, control and oversight are so crucial. Psychiatry is incapable of policing itself.