Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a controversial practice, with recent research finding harm, as well as a lack of efficacy and informed consent. A new article published in Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice finds the majority of relatives and friends of people that have been exposed to ECT report that overall quality of life is diminished afterwards. This research, led by independent scholar Christopher Harrop, also finds that a majority of participants reported no improvement in the symptoms ECT was meant to treat, with many believing it actually made the symptoms worse. In line with similar research, the current work reports that memory loss is common with ECT. The authors, including John Read from the University of East London, write:
“Clearly, some people do feel that ECT had a dramatic positive, sometimes life- saving, effect on their relative or friend that ‘brought the person back’ to them. But three times as many people reported negative impacts than positive ones. A minority wrote about short- term benefits and long- term damage. The majority wrote, often with great emotion (including anger and despair) only about their distress at witnessing the damage done to a loved one by ECT, and about the loss of the person they had once known.”
One of the participants wrote the following about the effects of ECT on their mother:
“I saw my beautiful radiant creative multi- talented mother: scientist, activist, poet and writer, community leadership, in addition to all the above, she played guitar and piano and taught folk dance, become a withdrawn, fearful, dependent person who, for many years, looked at her feet when she walked, so that she would not lose her balance or fall. It was like they crushed a beautiful flower.”
Past research has linked ECT with harm. People exposed to ECT have reported memory loss, cognitive issues, fatigue, emotional blunting, loss of vocabulary, and reduced quality of life. One piece of research found that nearly all (96.9%) ECT recipients reported at least one negative effect, with memory loss being the most commonly reported harm. One person that was exposed to ECT reported the memory loss was extreme, “like having Alzheimer’s, and being fully cognizant of it.” Some ECT recipients have also reported trauma and retraumatization from the experience. While ECT has been touted in the past for its ability to prevent suicide, one study found no such benefit, with some data indicating suicide risk may actually be higher after ECT. Research has also linked ECT to heart problems and brain changes that are associated with worse long-term outcomes.
The goal of the current work was to investigate the perspectives of friends and relatives of ECT recipients on the positive and negative effects of ECT. The authors used the online survey tool Qualtrics to share a survey with mental health organizations all over the world. The survey was developed based both on past research as well as the experiences of three authors that had received ECT. The survey included a combination of yes/no, multiple choice, and open-ended questions. To be eligible for inclusion in the current work, participants had to be at least 18 years old and be a friend or family member of someone that received ECT with an understanding of how ECT affected their friend or family member. In total, the authors examined survey responses from 286 participants. This study was part of a larger investigation into the effects of ECT. Results from the 858 ECT recipients that were surveyed as part of the same research are published elsewhere.
The open-ended survey questions were analyzed and grouped into categories and overarching themes by a single author. These categories and themes were developed directly from the data and reported without interpretation from the authors.
The majority of respondents were from the US (37%) and the UK (28%). Other countries represented in the current work include Australia, Spain, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, and Uruguay. The overwhelming majority of ECT recipients were white (89%). Most ECT recipients were female (68%). The participants themselves were most commonly daughters of ECT recipients (19.4%), followed by mothers (14.8%), and sisters (10.6%).
Forty-two-point-four percent of participants reported that ECT made the problem it was meant to treat worse in their loved one with another 12.5% reporting no change. This means the symptoms ECT was meant to treat did not improve according to a majority of participants (54.9%) with 45.1% reporting they noticed improvements in the presenting symptoms. The majority of participants (61%) reported that ECT had a negative effect on their loved one’s overall quality of life compared to 32.3% that believed their loved one’s quality of life was improved. Six-point-eight percent saw no change.
One participant wrote:
“My beautiful, brilliant, motivated sister- in- law often cannot talk at all. She no longer can walk. She cannot prepare herself food. She is so courageous. She does not remember her childhood. She can show you a photograph and tell you what someone has told her about that childhood moment.”
Another participant believed ECT made their loved one more suicidal. This participant also reported the doctor that pushed for ECT did not properly consider the circumstances around their loved one’s distress:
“She was more suicidal, not less, and was dramatically less functional because of memory and cognitive damage. It closed off her ability to benefit from other paths to healing. The doctor was an ‘ECT specialist’ and did not seem capable of taking into account the effect of the many losses and stressors she was experiencing.”
Overall, participants viewed ECT as more harmful than helpful. When asked “overall, how helpful was ECT,” 60.1% of respondents answered “not at all.” Forty percent believed ECT was helpful, including 21% that reported it was “very” helpful, 10.5% saying “somewhat”, and 8.5% saying “slightly. When asked “overall, how harmful was ECT,” 53.4% said “very”, 17.9% said “somewhat”, and 9.6% said “slightly.” This means 80.9% of respondents believed ECT was harmful to some extent. Just 19.1% reported that ECT was “not at all” harmful.
One family member described ECT as follows:
“Devastating, her life will be forever negatively impacted and she likely will be battling the after effects on her health for the rest of her life.”
Another participant reported that ECT had completely disabled their loved one:
“Completely left her disabled, needs a wheelchair, often stops breathing when stimuli is overpowering, her cognition is diminished, her memory is gone.”
More than one third of participants (34.2%) believed that ECT had caused brain damage in their loved one, with 47.7% saying they were unsure about brain damage and 18.1% reporting no brain damage. Coercion was common in the administration of ECT according to participants, with 47.1% saying their loved one voluntarily consented, 31.7% reporting that their loved one gave consent under pressure, and 21.3% saying ECT was involuntary.
One participant said “she was permanently disabled by the forced ECT,” with another reporting that their faith in the mental health system was forever diminished due to the way their loved was was forced into ECT:
“It forever changed my views of the mental health system, and of forced treatment, and of psychiatrists—making me have no respect for them, and a concern and fear of their extraordinary legal powers.”
Some participants said they were misinformed about the efficacy of ECT:
“After initially trusting the medical judgement of the psychiatrist I researched it in some detail and was appalled by the non scientific nature of the intervention.” Another said, “I am very angry that I was misinformed and misled about the harm that ECT does and its effectiveness.”
Another participant suspected that doctors prescribing ECT may not have the best interest of their patients in mind:
“Serious loss of faith in the medical community at large. Great concern that Drs. prescribe this treatment to make big money for hospitals and themselves and not to actually help the patients.”
Participants reported significant memory issues in their loved ones after ECT, with 60.7% indicating some level of impairment in remembering things that occurred recently and 73.3% reporting problems with remembering things that happened before ECT. Twenty-one of 25 other adverse effects were reported by at least half of respondents, including:
Participants also reported that their loved ones had issues with falling over (43.6%), sensitivity to light (38.9%), walking into things (35.4%), and seizures/convulsions (23.3%).
Some friends and family members expressed guilt at having not done more to stop their loved one from receiving ECT.
“I feel guilty that I wasn’t able to stop it. I feel like I let her down. I was supposed to protect her,” said one family member. Another reported, “decades later I am still devastated that I did not or could not prevent it from happening, that I didn’t understand enough at the time, was not forceful enough to help him fight more legally to prevent it.”
Participants described the results of ECT as terrifying:
“How did her ECT impact me? It’s terrifying. I feel helpless,” said one participant. “I was terrified by so much cruelty,” reported another.
Others believed ECT had traumatized their loved one, with one saying “it’s traumatizing. I can still hear the fear in her voice.”
This research had several notable limitations. As the survey invitation was shared on social media by authors that had been critical of ECT in the past, there may have been some bias in recruiting towards people with a negative experience. Survey replies were based on memory and could have been biased by misremembering. These accounts were mostly secondhand. Some observed adverse effects reported by participants could have been caused by things other than ECT, such as aging. The survey was written in English and not translated to other languages. This means the experiences of non-English speakers would not be included in this data.
Fifty-three percent of participants in the current work reported that their loved one was either forced into ECT, or was pressured to give consent. According to both research and lived experience, this is common when it comes to ECT. One ECT recipient reported feeling pressure to consent, not being able to remember actually signing the consent forms, and having no memory of being told about the adverse effects associated with ECT. A 2026 study found that a majority of patients referred to ECT did not receive adequate information on the procedure. Many participants in the same study were exposed to misinformation about ECT correcting a mythical chemical imbalance and few were told that ECT could cause heart problems and long-term or permanent memory loss. One case study even recommended using ECT to restore decision making capacity and gain informed consent for drug treatment during the period after ECT when research says “new learning is impaired.” In other words, this psychiatrist was advocating for obtaining “informed consent” from patients that likely could not understand what they were being told.
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Harrop, C., Cunliffe, S., Hancock, S. P., Johnstone, L., Morrison, L., & Read, J. (2026). An international survey of the relatives and friends of electroconvulsive therapy recipients. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. (Link)