jumpstarting a life with a little spark to the head

Knowledge is power, so we’ve been told. I don’t know if it’s power I was looking for through reading, but I’ve found that in going through ECT, it was helpful to have read quite a bit of information on it before, during and after the treatment. One of the things many of us do to get ready for ECT is to go to the web to look for any info you can find about ECT. We do find information, and some of what we find  are so pro- or anti-ECT that we become unsure what to make of these sites. Sure,web sites and blogs are certainly helpful (and I hope my journal can provide some of that),  but it’s really nice to have a concise guide that you can have in your hand.  I’ve read other books, but for this post I thought I’d mention two works by Dr. Max Fink. Dr. Fink is the founding editor of The Journal of ECT who has more than 50 years of clinical and research experience in ECT.

One to the left in the picture is an earlier work, Electroshock: Healing Mental Illness.  If you want, book.google.com has a rather extensive Electroshock book preview.

The newest Fink book on market  (and the one I would recommend) is the one to the right in the picture-Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Guide for Professionals & Their Patients. Here’s an extended excerpt. The chapters directly address questions like “What is electroconvulsive therapy?” and “How does ECT work?”

Both of these books are not long (about 100 pages) but more detailed than much of the information I gathered on the web. These books are definitely more clinical in nature, but they are easy to understand and I think these details help you be more calm when you go through treatment. Knowing these details are what made the procedure  feel not so frightening to me. Also, it’s not just the ECT patient that will want some information. There are family and friends around that will want to know about what you are going through, and having a book like these will allow you to give the most accurate information about ECT.

These books serve as a great resource for those who want to know, not just more but accurate info, about ECT.

Collect all previous “lessons”!