Torture Passed Off as “Therapy” Must End
Electroshock treatment or “electroconvulsive therapy” (ECT) is not, and has never been, a “modern medical advance”. It is psychiatry’s barbaric holdover from the 20th century that continues to inflict lasting harm under the guise of “therapy”—and it should be banned.
CCHR has campaigned against ECT for decades. CCHR helped secure the first U.S. ban on ECT for children under 12 in California (1976), in Texas (1993) for those under 16, and in Western Australia in 2014, with criminal penalties that include a $15,000 fine and two years’ imprisonment. CCHR is now working with a coalition of like-minded professionals to expose how damaging ECT truly is so it can be banned once and for all.
After decades of exposing this, the media is finally beginning to catch on
- The Times published an article in 2025 entitled “Electric shock therapy used on 1,000 patients against their will.” It reported that more than 1,000 patients in Scotland received ECT against their will in 2024.
- Mad in America published an article in 2025 entitled “Nearly All ECT Recipients Report Negative Effects, Study Finds.”
- A recent Daily Star article on ECT in the UK was entitled “Controversial treatment still used on 2,500 Brits a year as survivor says it ‘felt like rape.’”
- Another article in The Observer, entitled “Is ECT therapy safe?” quoted clinical psychologist Lucy Johnstone, who called ECT “one of the major unrecognized medical scandals of our time.”
- Professor John Read recently wrote an article published in Mad in America entitled “To the Few Psychiatrists Who Still Believe in ECT: See You in Court.” The article argues that litigation may ultimately do more than research to curb ECT. It cites a 2005 South Carolina verdict awarding more than $600,000 to a woman who suffered severe memory loss, and a 2023 Florida federal jury verdict finding ECT-device manufacturer Somatics liable for failing to warn about risks including brain damage and permanent memory loss. Another lawsuit, which named two psychiatrists and the hospital as defendants, settled shortly before trial in May 2026 after surviving efforts to dismiss it. Read says it was the first California case in which individual psychiatrists and a hospital were successfully sued over alleged ECT injuries or failure to warn.
Other international organizations are also exposing this. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture classifies non-consensual electroshock as torture. The World Health Organization has flagged additional risks from ECT including cardiovascular complications, severe memory impairment, and even death.
The momentum is building against this horrific practice. CCHR remains committed to banning ECT and now others are jumping on the bandwagon. We are steadfast in this goal, but we can only reach it faster with your support, so please help us by making a generous donation today.
Your support helps expose the damage psychiatrists are inflicting with ECT, assist survivors, and fight for a full ban. Please stand with us today!