Word: breggin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Psychiatrists and some former patients who found the treatment beneficial are rushing to try to prove the dissenters wrong. An ugly war of words has erupted. Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist who has written four books critical of electroshock and who favors therapy and human services instead, told TIME that shock is used by "cold, aloof guys who seem to feel more comfortable with machines than patients." Dr. Harold Sackeim, who runs the department of biological psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, responds that caregivers who forgo the use of electroshock and other biological methods to treat...
...about the same as any procedure involving anesthesia. Antishock activists cite Texas statistics from the mid-'90s, saying about 1 in 320 electroshock patients died in the two weeks after treatment, though the deaths weren't necessarily caused by electroshock. The activists also say electroshock causes brain damage. Dr. Breggin says the damage produces delirium so severe that patients can't fully experience depression or other higher mental functions during the several weeks after electroshock...