Erase the Memory, Erase the Woman

     “Shared memories and life experiences are the foundation of relationships and identity,” says Sarah Hancock, a co-author with John Read of the recent major ECT survey. “Erase them and I became a rudderless ship without an anchor.”

     The study, Electroconvulsive Therapy and Women: an International Survey, was recently published in the August edition of Health Care for Women International. The 2024 University of London study gathered responses from 858 people in 44 countries who had received ECT. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents were women.

     “Our findings show that women not only receive ECT more often, but are also more likely to suffer its most damaging effects,” said Professor John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London. Women had more negative outcomes than men from ECT on almost all measurements, from lower rates of mood improvement to higher rates of both short and long-term memory loss.

     Only fifteen of the women surveyed said they would undergo ECT again, as opposed to almost of the third of the men who said they would. The survey results also show that women were more likely to say they were given less information from informed consent interviews before treatment. Women also claim they faced greater pressure than men to consent to the electroshock.

     Eighty-one percent of the psychiatrists administering the shock treatments were men. “It is profoundly disorienting to have no frame of reference for daily interactions with family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, let alone erasing all education, work experience and cultural cues,” Sarah Hancock said.

     Erasing memories from a person results in erasing a person’s identity itself. No wonder these women faced so much pressure from their psychiatrists to consent to this brutal Orwellian ECT procedure. Even the warning on the Thymatron System IV electroshock machine states, “In rare cases, ECT may result in a dense and persistent retrograde amnesia extending to years. Patients may experience permanent memory loss or permanent brain damage.”

     Psychiatrists rarely divulge this information to ECT patients. Even so, they still have to coerce or cajole those female ECT patients into receiving the 460 volt procedure. Otherwise they could not profit from the 25 minute session that pays them up to $2500 for delivery of each of the “required” dozen treatments.

     Over one million people receive electroshock every year. That’s means two-thirds of a million women have had part or all of their memories and identities euthanized since this time last year.

     Thanks to Andréa Oldereide, Senior Reporter for The Daily Star, for her recent article about this.