[KLexpat]

Yeah they did, we have had similar problems in Australia

The thing is, it's still a lot better than the mid-century horror stories of institutions; electrotherapy, lobotomy, people being drugged into a permanent fugue state, sexual abuse, etc. Those concerns are what drove these changes to the system.

[CaptainZapp]

> The thing is, it's still a lot better than the mid-century horror stories of institutions; electrotherapy, lobotomy

ECT[1] (Electroshock Therapy) has an extremely bad rap (One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest didn't help), but there's quite an important use for it in modern psychiatry.

Notably severe depression, where normal meds don't help, or where there's an urgency to do something immediately (psychiatric meds usually take a few weeks to work and finding the right medication and dosage can be very difficult) ECT may be the last viable option for a patient.

Nowadays an anesthetic is applied before the treatment and (except in very rare cases) informed consent by the patient is required.

There's no doubt that it was massively abused in the past (and let's not even get started on lobotomy) and I'm pretty sure it's still abused in countries run by totalitarian regimes.

But it can be really the last hope for a patient with severe depression, despite the fact that it still has a very bad image.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy

E: clarifications

[bobthepanda]

The Carter Administration had funded a transition to community-based outpatient mental health. Then the Reagan administration proceeded to pull the rug out by repealing the MHSA and leaving it to the states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...