Posted by psychobot5000 on February 7, 2011, at 22:31:17
In reply to Re: ECT Could Be On The Way Out per FDA, posted by linkadge on February 5, 2011, at 11:18:20
I find the idea of ECT as somehow living in a bubble of presumed positives, immune to real examination, difficult to swallow; I don't know of many treatments more demonized in the popular mind, where it's associated by many with lobotomies and other midcentury abusive and failed treatments. Most people I've talked to (outside of a medical context) who've heard of ECT think its story is a horror tale of misuse, damaged brains and unwise, overreaching doctors. I've also read many stories on the web and even elsewhere, in which patients are very vocal in their dislike for it. In that context, it seems to me that perceptions of ECT among patients have not been unduly sanguine for a long time.
Respectfully,
Psychbot> I think it is "The Emperor's New Cloths" with some of these treatments.
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> Is ECT really as safe, reliable and effective as assumed? My personal thoughts are that the efficacy is bolstered in order to justify the treatment. How else would a procedure like ECT possibly continue to be available?
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> Some of the bias may be self fufilling. If patients think that ECT is really as effective as assumed, they may discount or downplay their own negative experiences with the procedure. Doing such will only distort a fair analysis.
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> Just like with the Emperor's New Cloths. Everybody assumes that everyone else is precieving correctly (i.e. seing the cloths), and only they cannot see the cloths, therefore nobody says anything. Or the multitude of studies on conformity out there. As long as enough people say that the short line is long, you can get a random person to say the same thing.
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> I think the efficacy of ECT is just misinformation that is hard to rectify. People have this image in their mind of the "big gun" ect. With a treatment like that, it has to work!!
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> Linkadge
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poster:psychobot5000
thread:978592
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110130/msgs/978871.html