Trainer | Consultant | Public Speaker. Trauma, adversity, wellbeing. Together everything is possible💛. Part time @PPR_Org #NewScript. Involved @KyrieFarm.
I’d never shared my story in services. Yesterday I was ready, healing, surrounded by loved ones, @PPR_Org#NewScript activists & @ReadReadj talking about the evidence re safety & efficacy of #ECT. View https://t.co/bN5mm6KHad
On #IWD ‘Medicalisation of distress = #VAWG!!
The latest (8th) paper from our international survey.
Full. Free.
Great to give a voice to so many previously unheard people.
“An international survey of the relatives and friends of electroconvulsive therapy recipients” - Harrop et al
https://t.co/6Wy4n6Dh6g
Family is the basic unit of society. But what happens when a promised "safe and effective" medical procedure acts like a hardrive wipe of all experiences? Relationships rooted in shared experiences are destroyed. 275+ family members shared their experiences with #ECT and how it impacted their loved ones. This peer-reviewed article (published today) in Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice.
My dad, a gentle, soft-spoken, hero-of-a-man, had never previously been candid with me about his thoughts witnessing my ECT experience.
When I asked him if he'd be willing to share a statement for the media about the article giving family members a voice, he sent me the following:
“The immediate effects of my daughter’s ECT were startling: memory loss. We are, after all, the sum of our memories. She knew I was her father, but she did not remember anything about our relationship. I was told this would be short-term. They lied. Even worse was the long-term effect on her physical health. It was a prescribed massive electrical injury, again, and again, and again. Typical long-term results of multiple electrical injuries include neurological damage, depression, anxiety, PTSD, migraines, hearing loss, reduced cognitive abilities, and/or attention difficulties, along with chronic pain. She got most of those, plus some extra.”
I wish our ECT experience was an anomaly. I wish that raw pain had been isolated to a single family to protect the others. Sadly, these survey results indicate more families were harmed in ways far worse than I was.
This is why the @FDA must enforce their 2018 ruling adulterating ECT devices and @CMSGov must cut off funding until doctors have training in how to chose an electrical dose that can reliably replicate research findings on their individual patient with a unique head size and shape.
The last survey response highlighted in the article is a devastating example of what can happen when a doctor isn't trained in how to choose a correct dose, the clinic isn't prepared for manufacturer identified treatment consequences, and the hospital's lawyers bury it.
My dad's heartbreaking explanation of his witnessing my ECT experience could have been so much worse in this medically sanctioned Russian Roulette. #AuditECT
@Chris_E_Harrop@LisaTMSA@ReadReadj@BasedMikeLee@MakeAmericaHA
https://t.co/hGWf4CQnW3
Honoured to be invited to provide a 4-hour seminar in the “Master Clinician” series for the Psychiatry Department of Stanford University on March 20. Online. On Psychosis….. “Beyond Diagnosis”
Open questions of ECT patients designed by patients and researchers (us) vs closed questions of the psychiatrists giving the ECT, designed by psychiatrists. Free article in full.
The self-reported positive and negative effects of electroconvulsive t... https://t.co/xHiZRC22M2
‘Our findings are not unique … Multiple previous studies have found that the majority of users of mental health services, internationally, are neither asked about adverse or traumatic events nor have them adequately addressed if they do disclose them’👇🏼Seizures to heal abuse🤷🏼♀️
"The results of our #ECT patient survey highlight the absence of routine identification and treatment of the real causes of our [“psychiatric”] symptoms. These results demonstrate I am far from the only person prematurely prescribed #ECT without finding out what was really going on and what I really needed."-@PsychRecovery
“Recent stressors also went largely unrecognized. Some 81% of Electroconvulsive Therapy recipients reported at least one significant stressor in the six months before treatment, most commonly loneliness or coercive/emotional abuse. 67% believed these stressors played a role in their difficulties, but only 34% were asked about them, and just 21% felt they had been addressed.”
#AuditECT @Mad_In_America@DisabilityRiCo@UNHumanRights@DisabilityCA@HHSGov