I was informed about this documentary by my housemate who mentioned the Electroshock Therapy that was used on psychiatric patients by the psychiatrist Ewen Cameron.
The youtube video is quite bad quality and it is in 3 parts, but it was definitely worth watching. it left me feeling very strange though. It is pretty horrific that psychiatrists could get away with things like this and it wasn't even that long ago!
If you don't have time to watch all three parts then I will fill you in...
The main parts that I took note on were that of the actual electroshock therapy procedure. Electrodes were put to the head of patients. Cameron thought all this was in the best interest of the patients. But the patients were completely unaware that they were about to have their whole memory wiped from them.
The patients were then given the drug LSD, this part was called depathening- wiping the memory of bad thoughts.
Step 2 was called psychic driving. The patients were put in drug induced comas (using insulin) and tape recorded messages were played over and over to them. This process could take a couple of weeks or a few months.
Cameron believed "memory loss was a small price to pay."
The patients memory was then rebuilt, and being confused and scared it was very frightening for them. They were given a book/diary to read, which was about 'themselves'.
The patients are now left with no memory of their own from before the electroshock therapies they received.
No comments:
Post a Comment