Posted by Crotale on May 13, 2008, at 16:25:29
In reply to Re: How much does ECT cost?, posted by blueboy on May 12, 2008, at 16:03:02
> This was an very good response, even though I've snipped the good parts. I did want to say, that IMO Max Fink is not an objective source of information. He is pretty obviously a pro-ECT zealot and, more tangibly, has significant financial interests in selling ECT.
Well, there isn't exactly a lot of money to be made in ECT - particularly if you're comparing it to the pharmaceutical industry! To the extent that he has built a career around studying this [very effective] treatment, I guess you could say that Fink is a "zealot." I wouldn't use that word personally, though, any more than I would call, say, Marsha Linehan a "Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Zealot."
> I would look elsewhere for advice. There are way too many people who, with a lack of decent scientific research, are willing to take extreme positions about ECT.
This is unfortunately true, although it was more true in the past. I don't know to what extent it is the case now. Most of the stuff I have heard on the internet about ECT that sounds "extreme" to me is the talk of the organized anti-psychiatry movement, not of real scientists or clinicians who actually have experience with modern ECT.
Much of what might seem overzealous is probably just researchers and clinicians being at pains to point out that the research really does support the safety & efficacy of ECT. In the past people have gotten the wrong ideas about it from the movies etc., and on the other hand in the past ECT really has been abused (and not just on the other side of the Iron Curtain). But anyway, you can understand, with films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" out there, why physicians might feel they have to go to particularly great lengths to emphasize that this procedure is not really like it has been portrayed, yes?
Crotale
poster:Crotale
thread:56897
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080510/msgs/828928.html