SHOCK TREATMENT
Sir,-While very pleased indeed to see that The Listener is concerned about the state of the Mental Hospitals, and being as keen as any one that the right type of girl should volunteer for the service, I was rather troubled at the idea of "shocking" people back to mental health. Let me admit at the beginning that I don’t know much about these matters; PBEPP PLR IPP ALPE PRALPADPNI ASPB
but after all in the last analysis the experts have to satisfy us ordinary folk. I must say that your description of the treatment gives me cold shivers. Electric shock strong enough to throw a patient into convulsions-well perhaps it’s all right! To my untrained mind it rather looks like the well-known treatment of throwing a bucket of water over an hysterical girl. Or again it might be likened to giving a man a year for pinching socks. The girl won’t turn on another fit within range of that bucket, nor will the convict perhaps revisit the sock counter; but is she less of an hysteric or he a more social being? Can Satan cast out Satan, and can a big
fear cast out a little one and leave the patient braver and stronger? No doubt if the patient has faith shock will often work--anything would, I suggest, sir, that we are trying a dangerous short cut’ and that the real need of the Mental Hospitals is heavily increased staffing, so that proper analysis can be followed by proper psychological treatment. At any rate, would the Mental Hospital people give us some more information-so that if it is possible our faith may grow.
O. E.
BURTON
(Wellington.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 316, 13 July 1945, Page 5
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279SHOCK TREATMENT New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 316, 13 July 1945, Page 5
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