MURDER OF THE MIND

PsyOp Internet Battle for Hearts, and Minds

2010-01-04T16:23:00.000-08:00

http://shtf411.com/psyop-internet-battle-for-hearts-and-minds-t3809-p38492.html#p38492

PsyOp Internet Battle for Hearts, and Minds
Sancho Jones
Dec. 30, 2009

The Internet revolution has changed the face of our planet. Over the last 20 years there's been a complete transformation of the way we live, conduct business, and share information. In the same amount of time, information technology has helped bring countless atrocities committed by governments, and global corporations into view. We've seen the rise of groups like "We Are Change", and birthing of the "Truth Movement"; which has kicked off a viral, and grassroots information wave. The Internet's been in many regards a saving grace of mankind, and in the same likeness the greatest threat to the establishment!

Recently, we had the Global Warming talks in Copenhagen; they were a failure! What else could come from the exposure of emails showing fudged data on Global Warming? Nothing is what. Climate Gate[1] changed what would have been global "Cap, & Trade" agreements, and other carbon tax legislation from an assured victory at Copenhagen, to an embarrassment. Al Gore decided it'd be better not to show up at all, after having to run from angry mobs, and being pelted by snow balls due to the leaks. The only thing that came of the conference, was a poor attempt at "saving face" through a non binding resolution.

Those hiding behind governments, and global corporations have long known the necessity of owning the Hearts, and Minds[2] of the people; in order to further their agendas. We've learned catchy phrases which embody the techniques. Some of these would include; "Divide, and Conquer", "Smoke, & Mirrors", "Order out of Chaos", "Problem, Reaction, Solution". Through the usage of these tools, perceptions can be changed, and goals can be accomplished. The US Govt. has actively sought to win the Hearts, and Minds of people openly since the Cold War.

During the height of the Cold War, and Civil Rights movement, the FBI created COINTEL[3]; which is an acronym of various programs the US Govt. used to deal with both issues. The methods used in COINTEL were inline with the techniques mentioned above. The overall goal was to control the information, and/or distort it so as to crush all legitimate opposition to the US Policy, or Hegemony of the time. This propaganda machine officially ended, but from the information presented below, it looks as though it is going stronger than ever before; and the Internet is the new battle ground.

There is subversion being committed across the World Wide Web on an ever increasing basis. The mainstream media has been very active in the shaping of our feelings, and thoughts, from the bottom up to meet current policy. We' have MSM Journalists self censoring for advancement, or towing the party line. We see corporate MSM censorship through management, Government censorship of the MSM, and all culminating into supporting policies, such as war[4]. A recent article regarding a book by Nick Davies called, "How the spooks took over the news", delves into how the world governments will insert stories at the community level, several years before a given agenda is needed.

"For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it."

"The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. I've spent the last two years researching books about falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media."[4]

In the USA, we have several groups designated to shape, and alter perceptions. The U.S. Army Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne)[6], or USACAPOC(A), consists of 40 Army Reserve units, or around 10,000 soldiers, who are stationed across the USA, are among many leading the mission of COINTEL. They have two main components, Civil Affairs, which is largely made up of lawyers, judges, physicians, bankers, health inspectors, fire chiefs,[7] or other professionals who can deal directly with the Civil nature of shaping a communities perception. The other portion is Psychological Operations; both operate by sword, deed, and word to alter Hearts, and Minds.

Another tactic being used in the U.S. is to actually pay operatives to create havoc, or to further the fury of an average person, so they will attempt an act associated with a criminal, or terrorism element. Hal Turner is an example of an operative employed by the US Govt. to further agendas, and policies. In his own words,"I was not some street snitch"[8]; in fact in his own words,"I was a deep undercover intelligence operative". According to the FBI,"Special Agent Stephen Haug wrote that "[Turner's] value outweighs the discomfort associated with source's rhetoric. Source's unique access provides important intelligence which, if lost, would be irreplaceable." Another FBI memo cited that Turner "has proven highly reliable and is in a unique position to provide vital information on multiple subversive domestic organizations."[8] Note the words subversive domestic organizations.

Do you feel left out, or would you like to get in on the gravy train; while at the same time selling out your fellow man? The US Govt. with 5 million US Dollars is promoting, and paying bloggers, texters, and building websites across the Middle East, and North Africa![9] The official purpose is to spread ideologies, and learning to embrace others ideas. Of course through the wreaking putrid of the rhetoric comes the truth; it's to promote US Democracy through the Arab world. I can read the websites now,"Freedom is the freedom to comply with The Patriot Act!"

Countries like Israel implement direct subversion, or disinformation as well. [10]"Israel's Foreign Ministry is hiring students and demobilized soldiers who will work around the clock writing pro-Israeli responses on Internet websites all over the world.... presenting themselves as ordinary surfers...

This is in addition to the existing Israeli volunteer internet task forces & propaganda applications like Megaphone & GIYUS - a chief Israeli propagandist is interviewed below....

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the policy-explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministry developed.”[10]

Amongst the many groups on the Net fighting the struggle for Israel, is the Jewish Internet Defense Forces[11]. From their homepage,"leading the fight against antisemitism, and terrorism on the web, coordinating concerned citizens around the globe, and promoting jewish pride, knowledge, and unity." A striking quality about any of these different groups, or the controlled MSM, who are sent out to propagandize the Hearts, and Minds of the people, is that they always cite Anonymous sources, or don't cite who the "officials" are who said "what". These kinds of propaganda articles are now common place[12].

Other countries around the world are implementing strategies to combat the information wave of the Internet; which is destroying their hold on the Hearts, and Minds of people worldwide. Australia's Government has instituted their new Cyber Security Strategy[13]. It's goals are of course always painted in a nice shiny, and clean picture. They'll be focusing on legitimate cyber crimes, and of course they'll have to monitor *possible* terrorist activities. They have created their own Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT as the main crime fighter; the program will begin operation January 2010, and will coordinate their activities with other National CERT's across the globe to combat Internet crimes, or as is becoming abundantly clear, to infiltrate, and use propaganda to halt the Information revolution.

The saying goes something like, if at first you don't succeed, then try, try again; right? Well, that's exactly what the US Govt. is doing. The FBI now is installing super spyware on people's personal computers. They are using "Computer, and Internet Protocol Address Verifiers", or CIPAV to infiltrate personal computers, or systems, download all files, and upload to government servers in Virginia[14] It sounds somewhat "1984ish", but imagine with everything covered so far, and taking into context what COINTEL did by replacing words, or meanings, imagine what they can upload to your own computer without the users ever knowing.

It's not just the FBI with their fancy CIPAV, but the actual giant Internet companies who've been bought out are complicit with this ever increasing war for our Hearts, and Minds; through information. Google is catering to the CIA, NSA, FBI, and to most other Government agencies by offering the tools necessary to scavenge stored data, and other electronic media. They are also offering a closed "Intellipedia, a Wikipedia knock off for spooks.[15] Not only Google, but most US social networks have been caught selling private chats, photos, and emails to Governments.

The Internet is proving to be a real hassle for the corporate, and government elites. Leaked evidence that Yahoo is selling all documents for a given user to the U.S. Government for between $30 to $80 has surfaced recently. Not only are they selling the contents of what we feel is our private area, but also the IP addresses of where we sign on.[16] This is not limited to Yahoo, and Google, but again spans the innertubes of the Internet. The U.S. Federal Government, and other government's are actively trying to not only use subversive means to control information, but also to mark those who present a problem; apparently so as to isolate them in the future.

It's a massive amount of data to be stored, and would almost seem impossible. However, we must remember the U.S. Govt., and the Federal Reserve print money 24 hours a day. They are building Fusion Centers across the country, and implementing computer systems such as Maincore. In Utah, the "National Security Agency is constructing a colossal $1.9 billion information storage center at Camp Williams which could be considered a power trip. But it's not the sort of power trip that keeps civil libertarians lying awake at night. No, this power grab is for the stuff of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla — the juice needed to keep acres of NSA supercomputers humming and a cyber eye peeled for the world's bad guys."[17] The problem is, that what the government considers as the bad guys is becoming the average American people, and in a hurry!

The deal is that people behind, or in control of governments, and global corporations realize the Internet is the one single threat that can create over night awareness into their ominous plans. They are attacking it, and people who are spreading information at every turn. Besides the leaks of Climate Gate, or Personal Data Gate, now there is the Secret Copyright Gate![18] See exert below:

"* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This will be a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

*There will be mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)[/quote] Visit link for full text."[18]

Welcome to the world of the DMCA's, and censorship![19] They are creating these treaties in combination with other censorship policies designed to limit access to undesirable websites; of course the policy maker's will decide what is "undesirable"[20], or which websites aren't fit to help foster the correct environment for the people in their country. It goes back to the beginning of this article; it is about winning, controlling, or owning the Hearts, and Minds of the people. Without owning those, the people behind the corporations controlling the policy makers who run governments cannot succeed. The Internet will be turned shortly, or the attempt will be made to turn it into an Orwellian hell of pay per click, or pay by minute. Followed with skewed, and distorted information.

It will take all of us to stop these people from censoring the Internet in their battle to win control our hearts and minds.

[1] http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Climate+ ... 32dbb01be6
[2] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... ing_slogan
[3] http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm
[4] http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2 ... ia-is.html
[5] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media ... 80672.html
[6] http://www.usacapoc.army.mil/
[7] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -psyop.htm
[8] http://rawstory.com/2009/11/report-fbi- ... placeable/
[9] http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2009/1 ... ney-at-it/
[10] http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2009/07/14/t ... overnment/
[10] http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2f1_1247746861&c=1
[11] http://www.thejidf.org
[12] http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1
[13] http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/327642 ... hting_team
[14] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/0 ... yware-pro/
[15] http://www.infowars.net/articles/march2 ... Google.htm
[16] http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=622292
[17] http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7053 ... .html?pg=1
[18] http://dprogram.net/2009/11/04/secret-c ... -very-bad/
[19] http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/le ... rikes-and-
[20] http://www.infowars.com/death-of-the-in ... -websites/

Special Ops robots now do psychological warfare

2009-12-22T16:10:00.000-08:00

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/18/military_robot_psyops/

Special Ops robots now do psychological warfare
Attention rebel meatsacks: Resistance is futile!
By Lewis Page
18th December 2009

US arms globocorp Boeing has announced yet another military robot demonstration - but this time, one with a difference. Rather than spying on meatsacks or mowing them down with the traditional array of automated weaponry, the war-bots in this trial sought to win over their fleshy opponents using psychological warfare.

The demo was carried out for the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), the organisation which runs the noted Green Berets, Rangers etc.

Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?

2009-12-07T14:14:00.001-08:00

http://www.counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html

Are Americans Too Broken for the Truth to Set Us Free?
Bruce E. Levine
Counterpunch
Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:12 EST

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States? Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further? What forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S. population? Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

YES. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker; and so the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes? NO. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing -- it can feel shameful; and there is nothing more painful than shame. And when one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?

In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington D.C. protesting this betrayal.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested any of this.

Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was over-ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even all this provoked few demonstrators.

When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more psychological way we become even more broken.

U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses. They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shutdown and escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

Maybe.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.

Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was fully realizing that Americans were so broken that they could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, disCouraged U.S. population?

The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.

The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant in 2004 (10 percent of Americans lacked a single confidant in 1985). Sociologist Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone (2000) describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.

We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:

Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented - or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings - or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions - or examples of authoritarian ones?

A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.
Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.

Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted, "And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude." Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.

When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything - this is one reason why the Soviet Empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.

Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."

Television, Mander claimed, helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television: (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves - and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.

Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything - not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."

The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.

Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.

Can anything be done to turn this around?

When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.

What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.

The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals - at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.

Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the Question & Answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . .

If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything - they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."

A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of the few U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."

An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.

Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). His Web site is www.brucelevine.net

Psychiatric patients still given ECT treatment without consent

2009-12-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1207/1224260241511.html

Psychiatric patients still given ECT treatment without consent
CARL O'BRIEN Chief Reporter
Mon, Dec 07, 2009

PATIENTS INVOLUNTARILY detained in psychiatric hospitals last year received hundreds of treatments of electric shock therapy against their will.

Official statistics compiled for the first time show that about 400 psychiatric patients received 2,700 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments during 2008. Of these, at least 43 involuntarily detained patients were either unable or unwilling to consent to about 300 doses of the treatment.

ECT involves an electrical current being passed through the brain via electrodes applied to the scalp. The resulting seizure can have significant beneficial effects, according to consultant psychiatrists.

However, many mental health campaigners say the forced use of ECT is a human rights abuse and is the source of long-lasting side-effects such as memory loss.

The real scale of ECT use may be significantly higher, as the figures do not include patients who were referred to other hospitals for treatment.

Most patients who received ECT last year were diagnosed with depressive disorders, followed by schizophrenia and mania.

The treatment was most commonly prescribed where a patient’s mental illness was not responsive to medication. Other reasons given included the physical deterioration of the patient, suicidal behaviour or because a rapid response was needed.

Official rules on ECT use state that it should only be used when alternative therapies have been considered or proved ineffective.

In general, ECT may only be administered with the patient’s written consent. However, where a patient is unable or unwilling to give consent, ECT must be approved by two consultant psychiatrists.

The figures, compiled by the Mental Health Commission, come at a time when campaigners are calling for an outright ban on forced administration of ECT.

Campaign groups representing service users such as Mind Freedom Ireland and Mad Pride say the procedure is overused and want the forced used of ECT to be banned.

Mental health campaigner John McCarthy said there should be no circumstances where ECT is administered without the consent of a patient. “We wouldn’t accept this in any other form of medicine, yet we accept it in mental health,” Mr McCarthy said.

“While some very depressed patients undoubtedly benefit from it, many don’t. It seems that very often the benefits are short-lived, lasting no longer than a matter of weeks or even days.”

However, professional bodies such as the College of Psychiatry say ECT is an important and potentially life-saving treatment, which has helped many patients recover from mental ill-health.

The college cites recent Scottish evidence which indicated that 86 per cent of people who received ECT in circumstances where consent was not given recorded an improvement in their condition.

College president Dr Justin Brophy also said new research indicated that memory loss among patients was often short-term and could be fully resolved.

ECT use has been falling in recent years, with a greater emphasis on alternative therapies. Official figures also confirm major variations in its use across the State, with patients in some areas much more likely to receive it than in others.

There were also differences over what was considered to be a standard “programme” of ECT. The national average was seven sessions, while in St John of God Hospital, Dublin, the figure was nine. St Patrick’s University Hospital in Dublin – a private hospital – administered the highest number of individual ECT treatments (867), partly because it is a national referral centre.

It was followed by St Brigid’s, Ballinasloe (281), St John of God Hospital, Dublin (189) and Waterford Regional Hospital’s department of psychiatry (181). By HSE region, the west had the highest use of ECT, followed by the south and Dublin Mid-Leinster.

© 2009 The Irish Times

'A big chunk of your life taken away'

2009-12-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1207/1224260241533.html

'A big chunk of your life taken away'
Mon, Dec 07, 2009

MARY MADDOCK (62) doesn’t remember anything about the first time she received electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Memory loss was the biggest side-effect of the treatment. In fact, she says, she has lost entire chunks of her life.

Mary had given birth to her daughter Claire two weeks earlier. Doctors believed she was suffering from a form of post-natal depression, but she had no history of psychiatric problems or depression.

She remembers more about the second time she underwent ECT, in the late 1980s. “I remember the cylinders for the electric shock; I remember them taking your pillow, so they had better access to your head, taking the anaesthetic and counting backwards until you were knocked out.

“It was a very scary thing to be part of, not knowing what was happening and then waking up with the most awful pain in your head like you wouldn’t believe. And not remembering things which had happened recently. It was like a big chunk of your life being taken away.

“This is why I can’t even remember holding Claire in my arms for the first time. It breaks my heart.”

The ECT formed part of two decades of drug-based treatment which, she says, took a massive toll on her health and ultimately prevented her from emerging from her condition.

After being diagnosed at various stages as being hypomanic, bipolar or manic depressive, she was placed on a range of powerful anti-psychotic drugs over a period of about 18 years. “The effects of the drugs were terrible. You felt like a zombie,” she says. “Movement was very slow and I found it impossible to concentrate on anything.”

It is 10 years since she touched a drug to deal with mental ill-health. Radicalised by her treatment in the psychiatric service, she has become an advocate for change.

Mary, with her husband Jim (60), a former secondary-school teacher, are lobbying for alternatives to the “medical model” that dominates much of psychiatry.

While she accepts the psychiatric service is changing slowly, Mary says treatment options are still too narrow and don’t respect patients’ rights.

“We believe ECT is a human rights abuse. It wouldn’t be accepted in any other field of medicine, but because they [patients] are vulnerable, the psychiatric profession gets away with it,” she says.

ECT: the top 10

The following list shows which psychiatric hospitals carried out the most ECT treatments during 2008.

1. St Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin: 867

2. St Brigid’s Hospital, Ballinasloe: 281

3. St John of God Hospital, Dublin: 189

4. Waterford Regional Hospital: 181

5. University College Hospital Galway: 167

6. Midwestern Regional Hospital, Limerick: 134

7. Jonathan Swift Clinic (administered in St Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin): 95

8. St Loman’s Hospital, Mullingar: 88

9. Mayo General Hospital: 83

10. St Luke’s, Kilkenny: 74.

Source: the Mental Health Commission’s report on the Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Approved Centres in 2008

© 2009 The Irish Times