Peter Breggin on ECT and "the secret psychiatric code"

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The Stealth ECT Psychiatrist in Psychiatric Reform

by  Dr. Peter Breggin, reform psychiatrist:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/electroshock-treatment_b_1273359.html


In addition to information about ECT, he wrote this:

There is a secret psychiatric code: You do your thing, and I'll do mine, and we'll never criticize each other. And so at the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association, the lobotomists would have their own sessions together, the shock doctors theirs, the drug docs theirs, the psychoanalysts theirs, the family therapists theirs, and so on...

I broke the rule in 1972 and went to a meeting of lobotomists and shock doctors. All I had to do was sit in the audience. One lobotomist and shocker stood up and called me psychiatric names. That was Leo Alexander, perhaps the nation's leading proponent of shock at that time. As documented in The Conscience of Psychiatry, another threatened me with death, stating that my reform work was depriving some of his incarcerated patients of the benefits of lobotomy and that several of them wanted to kill me when they got out of jail. He added with mock affection, "And Peter, the danger is real."

The shockers and lobotomists at this American Psychiatric Association meeting became so out-of-control in their rage at my presence that Leo Alexander's remarks would lead me to sue him for libel and slander. Fortunately, his outbursts were captured on my SONY tape recorder and I won a large enough settlement to continue funding my reform work.

Explains the tunnel vision and narrow-mindedness of many experts on mental healthy care.