ECT in the papers: more melodrama instead of serious reporting about psychiatry
- July 11, 2022
An article in the Observer 26 June 2022, “Brain damage claims lead to new row over electroshock treatment”, by Science Editor Robin McKie, is typical of its type.
The first version displayed McKie’s dismaying ignorance of the difference between psychology and psychiatry, describing ECT as “one of the most dramatic treatments employed in modern psychology” and suggesting that its greater use in women is likely to indicate a bias on the part of psychologists. Somebody must have pointed out fairly soon after publication that ECT isn’t a treatment employed in modern psychology because it’s a medical treatment administered under the auspices of psychiatrists and isn’t used at all by psychologists. Indeed, psychologists rarely work in the acute inpatient environments where most people with severe or psychotic depression are treated. Certainly the online version was changed within the week.
The article aired Professor John Read’s well-known views on ECT (which he and almost nobody else refers to as electroshock), claiming that the treatment “…is now the focus of a huge row – which erupted last week – …”. I can find no evidence in the professional or mainstream media to support the existence of this “clash”. In fact no evidence of it is provided in the article, which consists only of Read’s views linked to responses from two senior psychiatrists who were presumably invited to comment on them. It just seems to be made up as the excuse for re-hashing an old story.
There is a strong implication that something new has emerged to fuel this so-called row and indeed it is called a “new row” in the article’s headline. I can’t find any evidence that’s true – there is no mention of recent reports about ECT on the home pages of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Psychological Society or the Care Quality Commission. And a search of Google Scholar reveals no new research to back up the claims made by Read. The one relevant link in the article (trailed as a “recent study”) takes us to a 5 year-old piece in the Guardian highlighting the observation that more women than men are given the treatment.
“We know it causes brain damage” says Read despite there being no consensus that’s true, going on to make the bizarre claim that psychiatrists use ECT because they don’t know the difference between psychotic depression and loneliness or bereavement.
McKie seems not to have got around to asking Read a rather obvious question. If we are going to ban ECT completely then what are we going to do instead? Awaiting spontaneous improvement won’t do for somebody who isn’t eating or drinking; psychological therapy isn’t an option for somebody who can’t sustain a conversation; medication can help with delusions and hallucinations but it is not always effective. I’m guessing he has no idea what sort of depression is actually treated with ECT and didn’t try to find out. Why bother if you can write an article based entirely on recycling what other people say?
The only thing missing was a picture of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Discussions about the treatment of severe mental illness deserve better journalism than this.
