Max Fink

About the author: Max Fink is an emeritus professor of psychiatry and neurology at State University of New York at Stony Brook and a professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also the author of Electroshock: Restoring the Mind.

Studies have shown electroshock treatment, now known as electroconvulsive therapy, to be an effective treatment for depression, mania, delusional states, and catatonia in adolescents and adults, including the elderly. However, the public view of the treatment has been extremely negative, due in part to films such as the 1975 classic One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, in which the protagonist is forced to undergo both electroshock treatment and a lobotomy. In addition, the use of psychotropic drugs developed in the 1950s and 1960s began to displace electroshock because they were much less...