John Breeding

About the author: John Breeding is a psychologist in private practice in Austin, Texas. He is also the director of Texans for Safe Education, a citizens group that opposes increasing prescriptions of psychiatric drugs to schoolchildren. In addition, he is the director of Wildest Colts Resources, a nonprofit organization that trains adults to help troubled young people.

It is wrong to force people to undergo a treatment as risky and controversial as electroshock therapy, which causes brain damage, memory loss, and sometimes even death. Forced electroshock violates people's civil rights and freedom of thought and choice. Doctors who force this procedure on their patients justify the abuse by perpetuating two lies. First, they declare that people who are "mentally ill" are incompetent, irrational, and dangerous and that, therefore, the state has the right to decide what...