The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour - 9-2-26

In a world quick to prescribe electrical violence to the brain under the guise of “treatment,” it is a profound relief—and a moral imperative—to sit down with one of the clearest voices challenging this relic of psychiatric barbarism. On The Breggin Hour, my husband Peter Breggin and I spoke at length with Professor John Read, a clinical psychologist from the University of East London whose work has helped pierce the veil of denial surrounding electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Professor Read is no outsider throwing stones. He comes from the heart of the clinical psychology establishment, yet he has become one of its most formidable critics on ECT. His recent international survey—the largest ever, with 1,100 participants from 44 countries—gives voice to the lived reality of those who have endured this procedure. The findings are damning. What the Largest ECT Survivor Survey Reveals The research team, which included ECT survivors like our colleague Sarah Hancock, asked hard questions about efficacy, memory loss, and informed consent. The results: On five different measures of effectiveness, the “majority” of recipients reported “no improvement” or that their condition was “made worse”. Two-thirds experienced significant memory loss—both retrograde (losing past memories) and anterograde (inability to form new ones). For most, this persisted for at least three years, which in practical terms means it is often permanent. The vast majority were not adequately informed about these risks. Neither were their families. Women continue to receive ECT at twice the rate of men, with 82% of the psychiatrists administering it being male—an observation that raises uncomfortable questions about power, empathy, and whose distress we choose to “treat” with electricity. These are not abstract statistics. They represent shattered lives, erased memories, and families left picking up the pieces. As Peter has long documented, ECT is essentially a closed-head electrical lobotomy that exceeds OSHA safety thresholds for electrical brain injury. The brain is not “reset”—it is traumatized. Professor Read put it plainly: we are inducing grand mal seizures in people while another branch of medicine works desperately to prevent them. The original 1930s theory—that schizophrenia and epilepsy were mutually exclusive, so inducing seizures could cure the former—was bizarre even then. That we continue this practice ninety years later, with so little rigorous evidence, is a scandal. Legal Victories: Hitting Them Where It Hurts  Professor Read has served as an expert witness in key cases that are finally forcing accountability. In a 2023 Florida jury trial, manufacturer Somatics was found liable for failing to adequately warn about brain damage and permanent memory loss. A 2024 California case against individual psychiatrists and a psychiatric center—alleging negligence, fraud, malpractice, and battery—settled just before trial after surviving all dismissal attempts. MECTA, another major manufacturer, has filed for bankruptcy amid mounting litigation and withdrawn its Spectrum device, only to introduce a near-identical “Sigma” model. The industry adapts, but the human cost remains. Peter shared his own observations from decades of work, including the first successful ECT malpractice case (Salters, 2005). He described the visible horror: patients emerging confused, amnesic, and disoriented—much like victims of repeated concussions. This is traumatic brain injury, period. The temporary “euphoria” some experience is often the brain’s response to injury, not genuine healing. The Deeper Problem: Over-Medicalization of Human Suffering  John Read situates ECT within a larger tragedy—the reduction of complex human distress to a purely biological problem solvable by pills or electricity. Poverty, trauma, abuse, loneliness, and loss are pushed aside while white coats reach for the shock machine. Many psychiatrists, he notes, lack the skills or willingness to sit