On Saturday May 16, there will be demonstrations against shock treatment in many cities around the world, currently including 21 in 16 American states, plus 2 each in England and Canada. There will also be demos in Ireland, New Zealand, and Uruguay (yes, Uruguay!). And new people are still signing up to lead a protest. Why don’t you?

(For the latest figures, go to

http://ectjustice.com/protest.php

. If you have further questions, or want to volunteer to organize a protest in your city, write


This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.



.) Also see

Facebook Event Pages

. We will be adding to these.

This will be a historic event for our movement for human rights in psychiatry. We don’t know of any other time our movement has carried out such a coordinated action on this scale. It is being organized by three shock survivors, Ted Chabasinski in California, Mary Maddock in Ireland, and Debra Schwartzkopff in Oregon. Many of us have experienced what Debra speaks of here: “Electroshock robbed me of my history, and greatly impacts my future. I lost most memories of motherhood, of my 28-year marriage, and of my 25-year career as a trauma nurse. I know I am not alone in this. It is time we are heard.”

Shock treatment is one of the most brutal practices of psychiatry, and ending it would be an important reform in itself. A hundred thousand people in the US are shocked every year, and there are millions of people around the world who have had it. Ending shock treatment would prevent the ruin of many thousands of lives, and would be an important accomplishment for our human rights movement.

Furthermore, there is a lot of opposition among the public to shock, and so it is a battle that we can win. The power of psychiatry is largely based on people’s belief that psychiatry is a benevolent and helpful institution. At the same time, most people don’t think of shock as anything helpful and benevolent. By fighting shock and making it a large public issue, we are exposing the true nature of psychiatry. Let’s force the psychiatric profession to defend shock and show their true colors.

We want to encourage new people in the movement to get involved with this. Don’t think you have to have forty years’ experience to accomplish anything. If you can get together eight or ten people in your city, you can have an effective demonstration there. You won’t be alone, because there will be other people doing this too, and we can all help one another. The “mental health” system tries to convince us we are worthless and incompetent people who will never accomplish anything. Don’t believe this garbage. You will be amazed how fighting back makes you feel the self-respect that psychiatry does its best to take away from us.

Let’s fight back! We can do it!

Ted Chabasinski

Mary Maddock

Debra Schwartzkopff