ECT Proponents Deny Harms as the Tide Begins to Shift

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Editor’s note: this report was first published by Mad in America on 7th July 2025

Recent guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and American Psychiatric Association (APA) has finally acknowledged the risks of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). These organizations focus on ensuring that patients receive informed consent, acknowledging the risks of long-term memory loss and other health concerns due to the procedure, and recommend against the use of ECT in children.

But this has stirred up ECT promoters like Joseph Cooper and colleagues, who published a recent opinion piece in The Lancet Psychiatry defending ECT. Yet according to other researchers (published the same day, also in The Lancet Psychiatry), Cooper et al. cherry-pick data and ignore the large body of research on ECT’s harms. Worse, Cooper et al. “directly oppose” the principle of informed consent, according to their critics.

The critics were led by Michelle Funk, a key figure in WHO’s mental health policy, and also included ECT survivors like Sarah Price Hancock, and researchers like John Read.

“Denying people full information and the right to make autonomous decisions not only violates their rights but also reinforces stigma and disempowerment. We stand by the guidance developed with the input of leading experts and its call for legislation grounded in human rights,” write Funk et al.
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Peter Simons
Peter Simons was an academic researcher in psychology. Now, as a science writer, he tries to provide the layperson with a view into the sometimes inscrutable world of psychiatric research. As an editor for blogs and personal stories at Mad in America, he prizes the accounts of those with lived experience of the psychiatric system and shares alternatives to the biomedical model.

1 COMMENT

  1. Leonard Roy Frank proved that the psychiatrists have fully admitted ect is damaging over decades. To me going to the APA for these kind of “admissions” is like approaching the Gestapo to get them to admit they torture. They may begrudgingly admit they do and then invite you around to observe one of their sessions. Why would I trust the word of a load of liars and cheats ?