The Village Voice published this article about "The stunning comeback of electroshock and other harrowing treatments for the mentally ill." The Voice also published a letter by director of MindFreedom International David W. Oaks in response to the article.

Shock and Awe

Date Published: 2007-09-18 00:00

Author: Maria Luisa Tucker

Source: Village Voice

For the original article:

http://www1.villagevoice.com/news/0738,tucker,77846,2.html

Village Voice published the below letter in response on 26 September 2007:

Thanks to Maria Luisa Tucker for exposing the bizarre and extreme psychiatric experimentation that desperate people are being tricked into trying. However, I hope it's clear to readers that countless people have had negative experiences with this type of experimentation. Also, causing brain trauma has been a theme in many psychiatric procedures for a long time, so in a way this is nothing new. It is well known in neurology that fresh brain injury can cause personality changes—such as denial problems, amnesia, and even giddiness—that can be misinterpreted as an improvement of mental and emotional well-being. This is my 31st year working for human rights in mental health, and psychiatry is constantly coming up with supposedly new techniques that keep doing the same thing: traumatizing the brain. Just as shocking your garden with chemicals and genetically modified seeds may appear to have short-term benefits, the real question is: What is sustainable? That is, what leads to true long-term recovery of the whole mind, body, and spirit? Too often, a full range of holistic alternatives to drugs, shock, and surgery are not even offered in our overly mechanized Western medicine. Consider that two World Health Organization studies showed that people with severe mental-health problems were far more likely to recover in the poorest countries with the least access to modern Western medicine. There is something missing from our society, culture, lives, and spirit that the latest versions of psychosurgery can never replace.

David W. Oaks,
Director of MindFreedom International
Eugene, Oregon