NCJ Number
214028
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 12 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2006 Pages: 372-392
Date Published
April 2006
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This article reviews the use of electrocuonvulsive therapy (ECT) as a form of violence against women and its impact on women’s mental and physical well-being.
Abstract
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a standard psychiatric treatment that is routinely used in most psychiatric facilities throughout the world. ECT consists of passing sufficient electricity through the head (100 to 190 volts) to culminate in a grand mal seizure or convulsion. There is sufficient research showing that electroshock damages the brain. A historical statistic, which remains constant, is that women are subjected to electroshock two to three times as often as men. Stories are told where husbands would request this electroshock to act as a “mental spanking” to their wives. Because electroshock constitutes an assault on women’s memory, brains, and integral being, it can be theorized as a form of violence against women. In this article, women’s testimonies denote a sense of the entire process of ECT as an ongoing assault. Women survivors of ECT suggest that electroshock is punishment, which research supports. However, in addition to punishment, electroshock is seen as a form of social control, the social control of women. The article argues for and lays the basis for understanding electroshock as a form of violence generally and a form of violence against women in particular. It sheds lights on the nature of the violence and the various effects on women, psychological, social, and physical. References