[From Rick Marken (971217.1400)]
Bruce Abbott (9712.1420 EST)
Electroshock therapy evokes images of the electric chair or the
torture chamber. It was depicted as a kind of punishment in
the movie _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest. Do you have any
idea what electroshock therapy is like, from the patient's
perspective? From the therapist's perspective? What its
side-effects are? Why do you suppose psychiatrists would not
prescribe it for themselves?
Amazingly (for one who studiously avoids any contact with those
places in life where the rubber meets the road -- unless those
places are at the beach in Malibu;-)) I _do_ know what electroshock
therapy (EST) is like from a patient's perspective. This knowledge
comes from descriptions given to me by two acquiaintances who had
had EST. (I, to what must be the dismay of the medical establishment
and CSGNet community, have never had EST, though when I was in
graduate school a doctor prescribed Librium for what turned out to
be a sinus infection;-)).
One of these acquaintances, a woman in her 30s at the time,
lived in fear of having EST prescibed for her again. She actually
thought the EST treatments (PLURAL) had decreased her depression
but she hated the side effects (I forget what they were; this was
many years ago; I think the side effects were things like memory
loss and disorientation). She said she was now reluctant to confess
any depression to a "helping professional" for fear of being
required (yes, they _force_ people to have EST) to have EST. So
I suppose one could say that EST was effective since it stopped
her from complaining about being depressed;-)
The other case was a student at Augsburg College (call her S) who
wanted to commit suicide. One of my own students (call her H) asked
if I would talk to S before she jumped off the Franklin Ave bridge.
I was reluctant to do it because I didn't know the legal rules
about suicide ("If they'll lock people in a cell for _trying_ to
commit suicide", thought I, "imagine what they'll do to the person
who fails to talk someone out of it". I mean, this was the height
of the Reagan years and they were staring to put people in _jail_
for consuming the wrong kind of chemicals!).
I suggested that student counseling services should handle the
case but H said that that S wouldn't talk to them because they
would just send her off for EST, which S had had and wanted to
avoid. H said that if she could promise S that I would talk to her,
S would delay her suicide until after the talk. So I agreed and
I met S the next morning.
I approached the discussion with S in a way that would have done
Mike Acree and Bill Powers proud. I didn't come in thinking "I've
got to prevent this suicide no matter what". I've always believed
that people should be free to kill themselves if they thought
that that was the only solution to their problems. Geez. It's
THEIR life, for Chrissakes!
Well, it turns out that S had problems -- BIG TIME. From my point
of view, suicide seemed like a pretty reasonable solution. All I
said to S was that suicide, though a reasonable and effective
solution to her problems, would definitely be her LAST solution.
I suggested that she could do suicide any time; why not try to
think of other possibilities first. And she did think of some other
possibilities right then and there.
I never reported my encounter with S to the student counseling
people at Augsburg and the last I heard (about a year after our
encounter) S was enrolled at another college (Mankato State) and
doing fine. I knew she would do fine after our talk because I could
tell that she had come to see suicide as an _option_ -- one that
could be exercised at any time -- and not a requirement.
This all happened after I was already a PCTer (1982 or so). But my
"theraputic success" with S was certainly not based on PCT; I
didn't understand the theraputic implications of PCT at that time
anyway. I think it worked simply because I respected this poor,
homely, sad, confused person's humanity. I respected the fact that
only _S_ could possibly figure out what was right for S.
I was appalled to learn from this encounter with the official
custodians of the rubber/road interface -- the counselors who
are charged with helping students who contemplate or attempt
suicide (S had attempted suicide several times before) -- that
respect for others is not a big part of their program. The attitude
of the counselors was "we know what's best for you". That and
the god damn war on drugs nearly drove me into the arms of
Libertarianism. But I was saved from that, too, by PCT;-)
Best
Rick
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Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken