“Easy, Fast, Effective…” —Somatics LLC, maker of the Thymatron electroshock machine
What do you suppose happens when this remarkable, exquisitely sensitive organ is assaulted with up to 2,300 times more electricity than that?
The makers of one of the devices that delivers that electrical assault describe the procedure, known as electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock, as “an established treatment for severe depression.”
“That blank, vacant stare breaks my heart.”
To date, however, fewer than a dozen placebo-controlled studies have ever been conducted testing the efficacy of electroshock for depression—all of them involving small sample sizes (8 to 77 participants), all of them containing significant flaws and all at least 40 years old.
But an April 2026 study published by Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice provides a comprehensive view of electroshock “therapy,” as seen through the eyes of the relatives and friends of its victims.
The study by John Read, professor of psychology at the University of East London, and independent scholar Christopher Harrop, examined the testimonies of 286 relatives and friends of electroshock recipients spanning 22 countries, drawn from a broader University of East London research project involving 1,144 participants last year. What emerged was a deeply unsettling portrait of lives shattered in the aftermath of electroshock.
The study found that 61 percent of respondents said the “treatment” left their loved one’s quality of life worse than before. The accounts were also filled with reports of devastating cognitive damage: 73.3 percent described retrograde amnesia—memories from before treatment impaired or erased—and 60.7 percent reported anterograde amnesia, leaving recipients struggling to form or retain new memories afterward.
Behind the statistics are haunting personal tragedies: a former scientist and poet who withdrew into isolation and could barely walk without losing her balance; a sister-in-law who lost the ability to move independently and speak; and another relative left permanently wheelchair-bound following electroshock.
Loved ones of these electroshock survivors described their slurred speech, headaches, difficulty recognizing faces, shaky hands, convulsions, lost jobs and lost independence.
Fifty-three of the electroshock recipients died. The most common cause cited was suicide. When the family members and friends of the 53 were asked if they believed electroshock had any role in the death of their loved one, 15.1 percent called it “a direct cause” of the death, while another 35.8 percent said it contributed to it.
One friend of a deceased victim volunteered: “The hospital held a ‘hearing.’ I put that in quotes because it was a farce—just to close the door on the entire thing. They said the reason she went into perpetual seizures is because she had a ‘pre-existing vascular malformation’ that ruptured. We never knew of any pre-existing vascular malformation. I don’t even think there were any brain scans done before the [electroshock]. They certainly weren’t told death was a risk in this ‘safe’ treatment. It all seems like they were just covering themselves.”
The study’s researchers allowed participants to speak freely rather than respond to specific questions:
“That blank, vacant stare breaks my heart.”
“I lost my friend.”
“[My] husband and I no longer share many memories.”
“I can still hear the fear in her voice.”
“I wasn’t able to stop it.… I was supposed to protect her.”
“It was like they crushed a beautiful flower.”
According to mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights, electroshock was initially delivered without anesthesia. Patients would suffer broken teeth, jaws and spines from the muscular convulsions induced by the electricity. The procedure was then “modernized” and marketed as “new and improved,” which meant that anesthetics and paralyzing agents were added to dampen the victim’s writhing and screams.
Appearances to the contrary, the procedure is now more dangerous than ever. The numbing drugs raised the seizure threshold, requiring much more electricity to induce the seizure psychiatrists are seeking. The result remains the same: a grand mal seizure and brain damage, which can be permanent.
Psychiatrists claim the procedure will “reset” or “reboot” the brain. The writer is reminded of a recent playground incident he witnessed, in which the bully beating up the victim explained, “I’m just rebooting him so he’ll be better.”
If psychiatrists simply beat up their patients, they could likely get the same result without the accompanying permanent physical damage.
And just as you don’t have to know anything about internal combustion engines in order to drive a car, the psychiatrist flicking the switch on the electroshock machine doesn’t need to know a thing about the human brain in order to fry it with enough voltage to jolt a body into a seizure.
Another benefit to the psychiatrist, if not the victim, is that electroshock machines are eminently affordable online, available for as little as several hundred dollars.
Considering that just one typical 15–70-second grand mal seizure produced by the device brings in an average of $2,500, and that a single round of treatment consists of six to 12 sessions, the machine pays for itself in no time.
The patients and their loved ones, on the other hand, pay for the rest of their lives—with severe memory loss, permanent brain and organ damage, and dementia for the victim, and with anguish and guilt for their loved ones, who must live with the heartbreak of witnessing—day in and day out—their beloved condemned to a living hell.
