Post-concussion Euphoria:Why a Few Feel that ECT “Works”?

     The opponents of electroconvulsive therapy cite the numerous studies that have been done which show that victims of psychiatry’s ECT treatments have a higher incidence of suicide, greater risk of cardiac problems, and consistent memory losses.

     Because there have been no placebo-based, scientific trials for ECT in the last forty years – and the earlier ones are scientifically questionable – proponents of ECT tend to cite personal, anecdotal reports from those who feel ECT has helped them. There are a number of those – including from such public figures like Kitty Dukakis and Carrie Fisher – but they are personal, subjective opinions and not necessarily scientifically factual.

     Dukakis and Fisher both reported feeling immediate benefits from ECT – despite acknowledging their significant memory loss — and they each underwent ECT treatment after ECT treatment during their lives to “maintain” those benefits. The “gains” apparently soon wore off…without further electroshock sessions.

     As with any well known public figures, their personal stories about the “value” of ECT have influenced many people in its favor.

     Given the large amount of scientifically valid data about the dangers of ECT, it’s hard for anyone to square these positive accounts about ECT with its proven dangers. No one suspects these people of dishonesty, but one wonders how they can feel so positive about ECT after experiencing its 460 volt electroshock.

     “Post-concussion euphoria” might provide the answer.

     Medical studies now show that after a traumatic brain injury, a feeling of particularly intense well-being, happiness, or excitement can occur for a time period.

     In fact, a person doesn’t just feel content or happy. They feel a highly exaggerated, if quite inappropriate sense of well-being. They are overly cheerful, unexpectedly excited, and they often experience a heightened and unrealistic sense of self-esteem. 

     Being zapped by 460 volts of electricity ought to be enough to cause the kind of traumatic brain injury that causes that kind of euphoria.

     And that euphoria – temporary as it might be – ought also to be enough to prompt those glowing reports about ECT from those who make them. It’s also enough to keep them going back for more electric jolts during their lifetime to re-experience that unrealistic self- esteem…not unlike an addict having to keep shooting up to re-experience that high.

     On the other hand, Ernest Hemingway said about his own early ECT sessions, “It was a brilliant cure, but we lost the patient.” He committed suicide hours after undergoing his thirty-sixth ECT session, against his will.

     After repeated ECT sessions, Judy Garland said, “I couldn’t learn  anything. I couldn’t retain anything. I was just up there (on the set of Annie Get Your Gun) making strange noises.”

     Her life was filled with one suicide attempt after another.

     Apparently, no euphoria from electroshock for those two.

     Probably not much euphoria, either, from the other hundred thousand Americans who undergo ECT every year and experience the severe memory loss, increased suicide rates, and dangerous heart conditions that more usually follow that brutal ECT jolt.