33. WWI Psychiatrists Reasoned That the More Unpleasant the Treatment, the Better to Treat Shellshock Sufferers
As devised by Edgar Adrian, electric shock for treating shellshock had three goals: suggestion, reeducation, and discipline. The focus was greater on the “discipline” part, to the point that shellshock treatment often bordered on or crossed the line into torture. As Adrian wrote in emphasizing the benefits of electric shock from both therapeutic and disciplinary perspectives:
“The current can be made extremely painful if it is necessary to supply the disciplinary element which must be invoked if the patient is one of those who prefer not to recover, and it can be made strong enough to break down the unconscious barriers to sensation in the most profound functional anesthesia“.