Method of treating psychiatric disorders by inducing shock through drugs or electric current.
Shock was formerly induced by administering increasingly large doses of insulin until the patient was thrown into a brief coma; insulin-shock therapy was used for the treatment of schizophrenia . Electroconvulsive, or electroshock, therapy involves passing an electric current through the patient's head between two electrodes placed over the temples and thus causing a convulsive seizure; it was used for bipolar disorder and other types of depression . Both forms of shock therapy were developed in the 1930s; their use has declined since the introduction of tranquilizing drugs and antidepressants.