I was reading an article about the history of electro-shock therapy and there was a reference to Cuckoo's nest and how Kesey's depiction of the horrors of shock therapy helped to discredit the procedure and eventually lead to its outlaw. I have attached the article. I find it very interesting to look at how Cuckoo's Nest effected not only the literary, but the medical world. What other effects do you think the book and/or film had on the world at the time?
http://www.electroboy.com/electroshocktherapy.htm
While this may be taking it back to the literary world, Esther in The Bell Jar obviously wasn't a fan of electroshock therapy but it actually did end up helping her, which is weird when you think about it. Based on the depiction of electroshock therapy in this book you would never even consider that electroshock therapy could help someone, but maybe despite its inhumanity, it was a treatment with some merit...?
ReplyDeleteElectroshock Therapy sounds terrible! In the Electroboy article it said that the creator of ECT was watching pigs being slaughtered when he came up with the idea. How did Cerletti even put that idea together? ECT sounds barbaric and unscientific to me. Although electric shock can help a pig relax before being killed, how does that help repair a person's mental disorder?
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