List of people who have undergone electroconvulsive therapy

Use of electrical apparatus. Bergonic chair for giving general electric treatment for psychological effect in psycho-neurotic cases (World War I era)

This is a list of notable cases of treatment with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

List of famous people

• Linda Andre, American author, activist, director of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (CTIP), and self-described psychiatric survivor.^[1][2]
• Antonin Artaud, French poet and playwright^[3][4]
• Frances Farmer, American film actress, who described standing in line with other girls at mental hospital waiting for shock treatments in the 1940's.
• Tammy Wynette, American country singer and composer, who described having a series of shock treatments for depression in her biography.
• Dick Cavett, American television talk show host^[5]
• Sue Clark-Wittenberg, Canadian antipsychiatry activist, Director of The International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE) ^[6]
• Ted Chabasinski, American attorney, activist, and self-described psychiatric survivor who received ECT at six years of age.^[7][8]
• Clementine Churchill, wife of Sir Winston Churchill ^[9]
• Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist^[10]
• Simone D., a pseudonym for a psychiatric patient in the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in New York,^[11] who in 2007 won a court ruling which set aside a two-year-old court order to give her electroshock treatment against her will^[12][13]
• Ken Donaldson, author ^[14]
• Duplessis Orphans Orphans of the 1950s in the province of Quebec, Canada, endured electroshock.
• Kitty Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis and author of Shock,^[15] a book chronicling her experiences with ECT^[16]
• Thomas Eagleton, US senator and vice presidential candidate^[17]
• Roky Erickson, American singer, songwriter, harmonica player and guitarist^[18]
• Carrie Fisher, American actress and novelist^[19] Fisher speaks at length of her experiences with ECT in her autobiography Wishful Drinking.
• Janet Frame, New Zealand writer and poet^[20]
• Leonard Roy Frank, is a published author, human rights activist, and self-described psychiatric survivor.^[21][22]
• Wendy Funk-Robitaille, author and self-described psychiatric survivor.^[23]
• Judy Garland, Singer, dancer, actress.
• Harold Gimblett, British cricketer^[24]
• Julie Goodyear, English actress from Coronation Street.^[25]
• Peter Green, English blues guitarist, founding member of Fleetwood Mac.^[26][27]
• David Helfgott, Australian pianist^[28]
• Ernest Hemingway, American Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, Nobel Laureate, short-story writer, and journalist^[29][30]
• Marya Hornbacher, American writer^[31]
• Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-American classical pianist^[32]
• Vivien Leigh, English actress and second wife of Laurence Olivier^[33]
• Oscar Levant, American pianist, composer, television and film personality^[34]
• Karolina Olsson, the "Sleeping Beauty of Oknö"
• Carmen Miranda, Luso-Brazilian Singer, dancer, actress.
• Michael Moriarty, American actor^[35]
• Sherwin B. Nuland, American surgeon and writer^[36]
• Sam Phillips, founder, Sun Records, discoverer of Elvis Presley ^[37]
• Robert M. Pirsig, who later wrote about his experience in the autobiographical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
• Sylvia Plath, American writer and poet^[38][39]
• Emil Post, American mathematician, died in 1954 of a heart attack following electroshock treatment for depression;^[40][41] he was 57.
• Bud Powell, American jazz musician^[42]
• Lou Reed, American singer-songwriter ^[43][44]
• Marilyn Rice, anti-electroconvulsive therapy activist^[45]
• Paul Robeson, American bass singer and actor^[46]
• Yves Saint-Laurent, French fashion designer^[47]
• Peggy S. Salters, from South Carolina, in 2005 became the first survivor of electroshock treatment in the United States to win a jury verdict and a large money judgment ($635,177) in compensation for extensive permanent amnesia and cognitive disability caused by the procedure^[48]
• Edie Sedgwick, American socialite and Warhol Superstar^[49]
• Gene Tierney, American actress^[50]
• Townes van Zandt, American country singer-songwriter^[51]
• David Foster Wallace, American writer ^[52]

References