misrepresntation of phychological treatments

[smileyeagle1021]

Ugh... something I missed on Stargate that I caught while watching a rerun on Hulu. In the episode "Family" in season 2. There is two specifics that bother me, because they are things I have researched out of morbid curiosity.
Those are deprogramming and electroshock therapy (ECT)
I've had an interest in those topics because of the applied use in the ex-gay movement and the atrocities it has committed. And it just pisses me off to no end when people misrepresent them.
First the episode presents deprogramming as the parents lovingly talking to the child, nurturing them back to the right path. While ideally this is what really happens, and some cases is what really happens, the reality is that a very large number are anything but parents lovingly talking to their children. A growing number of deprogrammers begin the deprogramming by kidnapping the person who is to be deprogrammed. Often times violence and force is used in the process. Many people have described it as having one brainwashing replaced with another. This is not a peaceful process... it should not be displayed as such.
Later in the episode, when this quasi deprogramming that doesn't really resemble the real thing fails someone suggests ECT. Now this is a two part complaint. The first is, a doctor suggests using it for deprogramming purposes. NO LEGITIMATE DOCTOR WOULD SUGGEST THAT! The APA ONLY recommends the use of ECT for treatment of mood disorders, such as depression so severe that anti-depressants have no effect or manic cycles that more traditional treatments aren't breaking. Even then it is a last ditch resort. Never would it be suggested that the parents lovingly talking to their children didn't work, let's use ECT.
Second part of the complaint is how they describe it and apply it. They describe it as an electric shock, large enough to knock you out, similar to the 'Zat' guns in the show... and oh, it's over the entire body. WRONG! It is a charge directly to the temple, just powerful enough to induce a 20 second seizure. And it isn't just one treatment, it is half a dozen to a dozen treatments over a one to two week period. It also wouldn't be so simple as shock the patient, they wake up and it's all better... it is a part of the overall treatment... not the whole treatment.
Now there are valid and constructive uses for both these treatments... but considering the devastating effects they've had on so many people in the past, and the fact that they still are misused by some, and even when properly used is rather traumatic... it just peeves me to no end to see them both shown as easy and non-traumatic procedures.

[lordlundar]

Wow smiley. You seem bitter about something and this seems to have struck a nerve. While I don't doubt your statements for conventional deprogramming, there's a couple of things about that episode that take this out of the conventional situation.

1) The son was acting as a covert agent during the "peaceful talking" part as you put it. In short, he was trying to give the impression that everything was alright. When he got found out he freaked and was treated like a conventional prisoner. That part was more spy/counterspy than actual deprogramming.

2) The brainwashing was not like what most cults do, where they slowly degrade your mind and make you willingly agree to them. In that case EST would be worse because it induces pain which you don't want to associate with people trying to help you. In the show however, it was a chemical agent that controls the mind against the will of the person, and the shot from the "zat" was the most effective approach for removing the chemical. (they have a revisit of this chemical in season 3)

[smileyeagle1021]

Wow smiley. You seem bitter about something and this seems to have struck a nerve.

For the sake of full honesty... yes, I am bitter. I never went through electoshock/electroconvulsion therapy, but I did go through what could be considered deprogramming. When I was younger I acted out a lot... the tipping point was depantsing a complete stranger in a winco bathroom. The police were involved and a judge ordered me to do 24 hours of community service and do 6 months of counseling. I got a psychologist that missed the oh so obvious signs that I was confused about my sexual orientation and instead was convinced that I was acting out because I was craving the attention of my father (who at that point had been dead for a decade). We spent 6 months of him trying to deprogram (granted, doing it the proper and ideal way) my need for attention from my father and convince me that all I needed was the attention of my mother and grandmother (something that I already thought was adequate)... so yes, whenever I see such blatant misrepresentations of psychological treatments, that try to make it sound like they are easy and peaceful with no chance of negative side effects or chance that they will go wrong. Because it can go horribly wrong, it does have negative side effects.