What was shock therapy

Given its adverse effects on memory, patients should consider ECT only after other treatments have failed. Yet the bulk of research suggests that ECT can be effective at alleviating the symptoms of several mental illnesses, including severe depression and the manic phase of bipolar disorder.

It also seems to ease catatonia, a condition marked by striking movement abnormalities, such as remaining in a fetal position or gesturing repeatedly, that may accompany schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The case for the intervention would be even stronger if researchers could determine why it works.

According to a review, psychiatrist Tom Bolwig of Copenhagen University Hospital noted that ECT increases the secretion of certain hormones that are disturbed in depression.

Others have suggested that the electricity stimulates neural growth and helps to rebuild brain areas that are protective against depression. A third idea is that the seizures themselves fundamentally reset brain activity in ways that often bring relief, Bolwig concludes.

None of these hypotheses, however, has yet to garner convincing research support. As we learn more about this widely misunderstood intervention, we may be able to refine our delivery methods and reduce ECT's negative effects. Even in its current form, however, the treatment is a far cry from the barbaric punishment portrayed in the media. Hence, it is often worth considering as an option for unremitting psychological distress after all else has failed.

Kitty Dukakis and Larry Tye. Avery Publishing Group, Hollywood and ECT. Scott O. Lilienfeld is a psychology professor at Emory University. Credit: Sean McCabe.

Hal Arkowitz is a psychology professor at the University of Arizona. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Popular Courses. What Is Shock Therapy? Key Takeaways Shock therapy is an economic theory that says that sudden, dramatic changes in national economic policy can turn a state-controlled economy into a free-market economy. Shock therapy is intended to boost economic production, increase the rate of employment, and improve living conditions.

Economic policies in favor of shock therapy include ending price controls and government subsidies. Shock therapy can have a negative impact on the economy, causing unemployment to increase and civil unrest. Compare Accounts. The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear.

Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace. Or has it opened the door to a tyranny of the strong over the weak? These are crucial institutional questions raised by the shock therapy strategy of transformation in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Latin America. The dominant method of neo-classical economic reform in the world today-shock therapy-creates severe institutional problems for new democracies.

It is more than the specific set of economic measures summed up in the slogan "stabilization, liberalization, privatization. This strategy emphasizes speed in pushing reform through a "window of opportunity" created by extraordinary political events.

It suggests that reformers be isolated from political pressures during the planning and implementation of their program, and be granted the power of decree when necessary to overcome opposition by entrenched interest groups.

This lack of accountability is thought to enable shock therapy reformers to impose socially-optimal policies more effectively than normal democratic procedures.

Otherwise special interest groups linked to the old system could use democratic institutions cynically to undermine reform. However, a side effect of shock therapy in Russia and in Latin America has been to weaken legal institutions by degrading the powers of the legislature and extending the use of executive decrees.

This serves to de-legitimize state power, erode the democratic basis of state authority, undermine the fiscal capacities of the state, and, thus destabilize the political system over the long term. In every case since , when it was first employed in Bolivia, shock therapy has caused either major constitutional changes or declarations of states of emergency that suspended normal democratic procedures, where it resembles more of a revolutionary than a legal process.

It can fundamentally alter the nature of the political system in new democracies. Mikhail Gorbachev Former President of Russia Having overseen perestroika in the Soviet Union, former President Mikhail Gorbachev believed that shock therapy in Russia had been applied incorrectly and without the proper preparation. Joseph Stiglitz World Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Economist and former World Bank official Joseph Stiglitz believed that the shock therapy policies as applied to Russia had been flawed, setting up conditions for crony capitalism.

Same Policies-Different Results The term "shock therapy" refers to a set of radical economic reforms aimed at rapid economic stabilization, liberalization, privatization and the opening of the economy to international trade.