Peter
Breggin, MD
From:
"Lauren Spiro"
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 12:16 AM
To:
dhsombudsman.smhcp@state.mn.us
Cc: "MindFreedom Office" <office@mindfreedom.org>
Subject: Please Help - intervene immediately to stop the torture of
Charles Helmer
I am writing you to ask that you intervene immediately to
stop the torture of Charles Helmer, age 22,
which is being administered by the Fairview Riverside Psychiatric Clinic at the
University of Minnesota. Charles has committed no crime and is not a danger to
himself or others. He has asked for help to protect himself from torture he is
experiencing from ECT.
Charles has expressed clearly that he does not want to be shocked.
Please help this young man to be treated humanely. What if he was your son, your
brother, your friend. Would you sit around and let a loved one be tortured?
Please demand that the staff at Fairview Mental Health stop subjecting Charles
Helmer to harmful shock against his will.
His next torture appointment is March 26, 2021. Please stop
the staff at Fairview Mental Health from subjecting Charles Helmer to harmful
shock against his will.
Please act now.
Respectfully,
Lauren Spiro
Former Director, National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery
Below is an excerpt written by a psychiatrist, titled:
No One
Should Be Given Shock Treatment | ECT Justice!
Peter
Breggin, MD
ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) involves the application of two electrodes to
the head to pass electricity through the brain with the goal of causing an
intense seizure or convulsion. The process always damages the brain, resulting
each time in a temporary coma and often a flatlining of the brain waves, which
is a sign of impending brain death.
After one, two or three ECTs, the trauma causes typical symptoms of severe head
trauma or injury including headache, nausea, memory loss, disorientation,
confusion, impaired judgment, loss of personality, and emotional instability.
These harmful effects worsen and some become permanent as routine treatment
progresses.
ECT originated in 1938. Modifications have been used since the 1960s and are not
new or safer. These changes make it harder to cause a seizure. As a result,
modern ECT requires even stronger and more damaging doses of electricity.
ECT works by damaging the brain. The initial trauma can cause an artificial
euphoria which ECT doctors mistakenly call an improvement. After several routine
ECTs, the damaged person becomes increasingly apathetic, indifferent, unable to
feel genuine emotions, and even robotic. Memory loss and confusion worsen. This
helpless individual becomes unable to voice distress or complaints and becomes
docile and manageable. ECT doctors mistakenly call this an improvement but it
indicates severe and disabling brain injury.
ECT permanently impairs memory and causes other long term signs of mental
dysfunction such as difficulties with concentration and new learning. Memories
of important past experiences are commonly impaired or eradicated, including
weddings, birthdays, vacations, educational experiences, and housekeeping or
professional skills. Sense of self or identity can be demolished, and family
members often report that their loved one “was never the same again”. Follow-up
studies show that ECT has been used to abuse women by making them docile and
submissive.
Many animal studies show that clinical ECT causes small hemorrhages throughout
the brain as well as patches of cell death. Newly discovered ECT-induced
neurogenesis (growth of new brain cells) is not a benefit but instead confirms
brain injury. Neurogenesis is a response to brain damage from many causes,
including Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
ECT is not a last resort because it does not work and can ruin recovery. ECT
does not prevent suicide, but can cause it. Controlled clinical trials show that
ECT has no more benefit than sham ECT (anesthesia with no shock). ECT blunts
emotional life during the acute phase of brain injury for about 4 weeks, after
which the person remains depressed with the added affliction of brain damage.
Abundant evidence indicates that ECT should be banned. Because ECT destroys the
ability to protest, all ECT quickly becomes involuntary and thus inherently
abusive and a human rights violation. Therefore, when ECT has already been
started, concerned relatives or others should immediately intervene to stop it,
if necessary with an attorney.
In place of ECT, depressed and severely disturbed people need good individual,
couples, or family therapy. Family members should participate actively in
therapy with their overwhelmed loved ones.
Since psychiatric drugs commonly cause or worsen depression, anxiety and
psychosis, always consider stopping all psychiatric drugs through a carefully
supervised withdrawal.
Becoming free of psychiatric drugs is often the start of recovery. See Peter R.
Breggin, MD, Psychiatric
Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Their
Families.
ECT is not a last resort because it does not work and can ruin any hope of
future recovery.
After one or more ECTs, the brain-damaged individual becomes too docile and
confused to protest or resist. Therefore family members, concerned individuals,
advocates, or attorneys must intervene to prevent more extensive injury. No harm
will come from stopping shock treatment, but increasing harm will inevitably
occur from increasing numbers of ECTs.
Because it always becomes involuntary and because it causes severe damage to the
brain and mind, ECT should be banned.
--
lauren spiro
eCPR Co-Founder & Coordinator for South Asia and
Africa
first language: English
other languages: French, Mandinka
