What is ECT and how does it work?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest has coloured perceptions of electroconvulsive therapy, but the modern reality is differentThe public perception of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is rooted in cultural depictions, not least the dramatic scene in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in which Jack Nicholson is held down as the treatment is carried out.Sylvia Plath’s account in The Bell Jar is hardly less brutal. Describing ECT, administered without general anesthetic, the prot