Shock Therapy Used on Children

Electroconvulsive therapy, also known as shock therapy, is used to treat patients who have severe depression. It is also intended to cure mental disorders such as, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and autism. Adults are the majority who receive shock therapy, but children do as well. Although ECT is used to treat severe depression, it is now being used as punishment on children to change their behaviors. For the first time in four decades, children and adolescents are being used as subjects of new shock therapy studies (Cauchon). Electroconvulsive therapy is curing the mentally disturbed and now being used as a punishment on children.

Students, some as young as six years old, are receiving shock therapy at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. This center is for children and young adults who have behavioral and mental problems and is the only place in the country that uses shock therapy on their students. Most children at the center have violent behaviors such as self abuse, hitting and kicking. Children with such behaviors are punished by shock therapy.

The use of shock therapy is an attempt to control the behavior of troubled children (Newsday.com). If a student is obedient and/or violent with a staff member, he/she will receive a 2 second shock with 65 volts. A student can wear up to five electrodes strapped to their arms and their legs (Cooper). The shock is said to feel like a pin prick, but one mother thought otherwise.

The mother of 17 year old Antwone Nicholson, Evelyn Nicholson, wanted her son to be removed from the JudgeRotenberg Center after strapping an electrode to herself. Antwone's mother was told that the shock would feel like a pin prick. "Let me tell you, it hurt far worse than that. Two seconds felt like two minutes. It was like a parade of pins stabbing me in the arm. I could see why students would alter their behavior after feeling that sensation," said Evelyn. Her son suffered when his illness could have been cured in less harmful ways.

Antwone's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and behavioral problems can be cured with medication and counseling. Antwone was forced to go to the center and receive shock therapy. At the JudgeRotenberg Center, he was shocked when he cursed, threw things and attacked staff (Newsday.com). Antwone showed a decrease in violent episodes due to shock therapy, but Antwone's sister said, "If anything, his behavior has declined" (Shock Therapy for Kids). He became more depressed and did not want to be at the center. Shock therapy was not beneficial for Antwone and it should not be used as a punishment. Positive reinforcement is more effective.

Positive reinforcement encourages a behavior by rewarding that specific behavior after it is exhibited and is often used with children (Philpot). According to child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Bennett Leventhal, there are safer and more effective treatments. "It's very well established that positive reinforcement or reward is a far better behavioral management strategy," says Dr. Bennett Leventhal (Cooper). Children respond more to positive reinforcement. For example, if a child does the dishes and receives a cookie, the child will continue to want to do the dishes. When a child is yelled at or is grounded, they tend to rebel. If one is punished in a negative matter, it is not likely for them to respond positively.

Dr. Leventhal believes positive reinforcement is more effective, "There are long-term studies that show that when you use positive reinforcement, the rate of maintaining the good behavior is sustained far better than in the cases where you use negative reinforcement of punishment" (Cooper). The Kennedy Krieger Institute uses positive reinforcement and children's negative behaviors disappear (Cooper). Positive reinforcement is a better and less harmful way to enforce changes in a child's behavioral problem. Parents should use positive reinforcement to control their children. Sending them to centers to receive shock therapy could be considered cruel.

Parents know shock therapy is painful, but they don't have to deal with their children when they send them off to centers. They lose hope when it comes to handling their children and then they send them to centers to receive shock therapy. When troubled children are sent away, no one has to interact with them except for the workers at facilities they are sent to. Not only are parents relieved, but society is relieved as well. Society sends people who are not seen as "normal" to mental hospitals and they are rarely seen in public. We prefer them to be out of sight just like the patients in Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In this story, the town residents were quick to judge the uniformed patients who were out on a fishing trip. Society does not want mentally disturbed patients interacting with "normal," but prefers to treat the mentally ill with shock therapy.

Changes in children are not always evident after receiving shock therapy. I don't think it is right for a child to go through pain if the shock therapy will not be 100% effective. Also, if it is going to make the child's behavior worsen, shock therapy should not be used as a treatment. Despite a study at Bellevue Hospital that reported that 98 children (ages 3-11) had a 97% success rate after shock therapy, in the follow up, it was proven that the children's actions did not change. "In a number of cases, parents have told the writers (of USA Today) that the children were definitely worse" (Cauchon).

When children undergo electroconvulsive therapy, they are experiencing a grand mal seizure. After the electroconvulsive therapy, it is likely for the patient to experience, headache, muscle aches, nausea, memory problems and confusion (Electroconvulsive Therapy). Parents are willing to punish their children with knowledge of such side effects. They are taking the easy way out while their children are hurting and experiencing pain.

As a mother, Evelyn Nicholson, was deeply affected by her son's phone calls, "He would call me up crying and say 'You've got to get me out of here. I can't take this" (Cooper). Mother's have a natural sensitivity which is known as an archetype. An archetype is a model which symbolizes a certain symbol, person, or image. For example, the mother archetype is nurturing to their child. The relationship between Antwone and Evelyn Nicholson can be analyzed with psychologist Carl Jung's concept of the archetype. Evelyn Nicholson couldn't stand to see her son suffering. Especially after she felt how powerful the shock was. Evelyn wanted to remove her son from the Judge RotenbergCenter because she knew that Antwone was in pain and couldn't do anything about it.

It is unfair to children who have no say in whether or not they wish to be treated with electroconvulsive therapy. Ted Chabasinski, a victim of shock therapy, was shocked twenty times at the age of six. "It makes me sick to think children are having done to them what was done to me. I've never met anyone other than myself who's functional after being shocked as a child." said Chabaskinski (Cauchon). Parents send their children to get ECT without knowing if their children will have positive results. Parents should feel guilty for not trying to help their children in constructive ways. They know their kids are being punished in harmful ways. Evelyn Nicholson was the only parent who tried to help her child after she experienced guilt.

"It's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for kids," says Evelyn Nicholson about shock therapy. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the patients in the mental institution are punished by the use of electroconvulsive therapy. Randall McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, did not get along. Nurse Ratched punished McMurphy, along with other deviant patients at the ward, by sending them to the "Disturbed" ward for electroconvulsive therapy. The "Disturbed" ward is where dangerous patients are sent to receive shock therapy. McMurphy suffered through several shock therapy treatments, just like the children of the Judge RotenbergCenter.

Randall McMurphy referred to himself as "The ten-thousand-watt psychopath" (Kesey). Eventually he turned into a vegetable. I can not imagine a child turning to this state of mind. Shock therapy should only be used when it is being used to cure someone. Children should not have to suffer from shock therapy as a punishment. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a fiction novel from the sixties, but its practices of shock therapy as a punishment are still being practiced today.

Electroconvulsive therapy is used for severe forms of depression and used when a patient is not responding to antidepressants (Electroconvulsive Therapy: Present and Future). At certain centers such as the JudgeRotenberg Center, this is not the case. Their use of shock therapy is harmful to their patients and it is used as punishment for deviant and violent acts of behavior. Antidepressants would not cause children physical pain. Dr. , owner of the JudgeRotenberg Center, does not believe psychiatric drugs are the way to cure a patient. According to Dr. Israel, "If you don't have successful treatment, you have a child that's going to be drugged into a zombie-like condition for the rest of his or her life and end up in a psychiatric hospital" (Cooper). If psychiatric drugs are taken in moderation and not abused, I don't see what is harmful about them. Shocking a child will cause physical and emotional pain. I believe parents are depriving their children from normal mental development by punishing them with shock therapy.

"You're shocking a brain that is still developing," said neuroscientist Peter Sterling (Cauchon). I agree with Peter Sterling, although, according to researcher Kathleen Logan, "There is no evidence that electroconvulsive therapy affects brain development of children in any permanent way" (Cauchon). While Logan states that ECT does not affect brain development permanently, she does not mention anything about the temporary effects on the brain such as memory loss.

After the use of electroconvulsive therapy, memory loss is a concern. After ECT, the memory reverts to the level prior to illness in about two weeks (Electroconvulsive Therapy). With memory loss, the patient who went through electroconvulsive therapy experiences disorientation. Consciousness is usually regained rapidly, but the patient may exhibit confusion (Electroconvulsive Therapy). Children have a hard enough time grasping concepts and learning, ECT will just add on to their confusion.

How can children experience a normal lifestyle living far away from their parents and being shocked every time they do something wrong? Children may not be true to themselves because they are so focused on not receiving a shock for any wrong actions they may make. The goal in life is to realize the self. The self is an archetype that represents the transcendence of all opposites, so that every aspect of your personality is expressed equally (Boeree). If a child is too worried about the next time he/she is will be shocked, this may conflict with the self and their parents.

Parents should have patience with their children. There are many ways to modify a child's behavior. Sending them to centers for shock therapy is a barbaric choice of punishment. Parents should be willing to take a challenge when it comes to dealing with their children's actions. Positive actions should be a practice between parent and child. Punishment comes in all forms and shock therapy should not be one of them.