I Am A Psychology And Web Design Student. Ask Me Anything.

Since the early 60's, ECT has been being used on pregnant women. It can cause abortion, but usually the baby survives. There have been 0 long term follow up tests done on the infants. The official stance is that the infants are born normal, meaning ten fingers and toes. With no long term testing, would you reccommend ECT to a preganant woman and under what circumstances ?

I've never heard of ECT...what's it for?

Electro-convulsive therapy. I am a product of this procedure. My mother had it done throughout her pregnancy with me. I have had a rather extreme version of temporal lobe epilepsy since birth. I'd like to find other people who were children of ECT but I am guessing most don't know. My father did not inofrm me until I was 36, shortly before he died, due to feelings of guilt. I want to know how bad a woman's depression would have to be in order for them to risk the life of the fetus that she plans to give birth to. It saved her a few months of depression but screwed up my entire life. What really bothers me though is the fact no studies have been done and they are still doing the procedure.

So how does it work? They zap your temporal lobes to try to get rid of depression?

You are a beginning student are'nt you ? LOL I thought perhaps you had already had a couple of years in community college or at least were self researched to an extent. Usually people are before they go into a particular field. My infant TLE is incidental to the ECT they administered to my mother. If you don't know what ECT is, you can open your college text book or google "administration of ECT ". I am not supposed to answer your questions here, you are supposed to answer mine. haha Nevermind :)

I'm a junior in college, but I only JUST declared my psychology major. I took one intro psych class in high school and I'm now taking my fourth psychology class in college. We haven't talked about any type of therapy, treatment, or anything like that yet.

So I'll tell you what classes I've taken in college so you can have some perspective...

I've taken Intro to Psych, Behavior Modification, Life Span Development, and now I'm taking Personality Theories. So ask me something about one of those things.

*giggles* You would have a hey day with my mind!

When did you know you wanted to study psychology?

Usually they cover a basic explanation of ECT in Intro to psych. I still have my notes here form 20 years ago when i took the class. Wow, you hav'nt done abnormal psych yet ? That class is a hoot ! Everyone in the class will begin to diagnose themselves hee hee Half the class will seek therapy. buwuhahahaha

When you get your degree and are practising, do me a favor. If a patient tells you they experience time lapses, hallucinations, out of body or flying experiences, deja or jamais-vous....don't be quick to jump on the schitz bandwagon. Send them to a neurologist and get them checked for Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. I was misdiagnosed by shrinks for 45 years. My problem was physical, not psychological, and I ended up on every kind of psych med and all of them made me worse. I lost years of my life to those drugs because I was misdiagnosed. Remember those symptoms. Thanks !

Ah yes, luckypickle, I sure would! I loooooove digging into people's psyches! As for your question, I would say...about three days ago.

Bitter, I can't remember studying ECT in intro at all. Maybe it just slipped my mind, but I would think I would have remembered something like that. I haven't had abnormal psych yet, but I can't wait for that class! It sounds like so much funnnnn! I'm so intrigued by people with freaky minds...like even myself sometimes! And by the way, I'm already seeing a counselor, so if I decide I need therapy, he'll be right there for me!

That's interesting that your temporal lobe epilepsy gave you hallucinations and such. I've never heard of that occurrence. My epilepsy has never caused that. But I have complex partial seizures...what kind do you have? Don't worry though...I never jump to conclusions. I always make sure I'm right before I make a decision. Besides, I wouldn't be able to prescribe medicines probably because I don't want to be a psychiatrist. Just a psychologist. Although I'm not against psychoactive drugs, I do believe that they are used WAY too often, when therapy can work just as well, and that way, they won't have to be dependent on drugs for the rest of their lives.