LAUSR

When ECT is indicated, it is by consensus the most effective treatment in psychiatry. Clinicians, and family who observe patients undergoing ECT, are mostly persuaded by its effectiveness and overall benefits to patient’s recovery and quality of life.2 Often, the level of conviction of a clinician or a family member who observed the response and the journey of recovery of a severely ill patient to ECT is non-debatable. This may be contrasted by agony of the stigma of having ECT and the possible side effects of the procedure. Nevertheless, the most vocal argument that faces any individual who surfs the internet looking for information about ECT is the myriad of figurative depiction of ECT as a ‘barbaric treatment’. Surprisingly, many psychiatrists have been, knowingly or unknowingly, affected by such portrayals. This can be observed in the structure and content of some ECT guidelines and legal restrictions.3