Samuel Gershon’s comment on

Herwig Czech, Gabor S. Ungvari, Kamila Uzarczyk, Paul Wydlow and Gabor Gazdag’s paper on ECT in the shadow of the gas chamber and Gabor Gazdag, Gabor S. Ungvari and Herwig Czech’s paper on Mass killing under the guise of ECT

        The presentation of these two documents together attempts, as objectively as possible, to present a very detailed and technically complex story about the slow progress in the development and use of ECT.

        Included are the political and cruel aspects of its usage by the Nazis and politically unsavory situations. However, this information is presented from a purely historical and objectively based perspective.

        This material is an  important factual record of devious development until the present day. This does not and should not change the true critical evaluation of the value of ECT in its  current, vastly improved and humane version.

        We should not forget that in its present form it is a valuable and truly effective therapy for an extended range of therapies beyond severe depression.  In this context the readers should be referred to Max Finks’s extensive writings and Edward Shorter and Fink’s recent book on Catatonia.

References:

Max Fink Papers. Renaissance School of Medicine. Stony Brook University. renaissance.stonybrookmedicine.edu/psychiatry/faculty/fink_m.

Shorter E, Fink M. The Madness of Fear. Oxford University Press; 2021.

September 23,  2021