The Campaigner

for his "future man." To achieve, as he puts it, "the treatment for schizophrenia and depression. Like
control of domestic and international violence in the lobotomy, it almost disappeared as a mode of treatment
political sphere"[15], Delgado is well endowed by the in the U.S., replaced by the anti-depressant drugs in the
U.S. Public Health Service, the Office of Naval mid-1950's, only to return again some ten years later in
Pop-arch, and the U.S. Air Force. the mid-1960's to be used concurrently with other modes
Nor is Delgado alone in his campaign to physically of "therapy."
control the mind. One colleague, Dr. Robert G. Heath, The treatment consists of sending an electric current
Chairman and Professor of the Department of Psychiatry through the front part of the patient's head, resulting in
and Neurology at Tulane University in New Orleans, unconsciousness and convulsions.
boasts of holding the record for implanting 125 elec- The patient often awakes terrified, with wrenched
trodes at one time in one brain. His specialities are muscles, broken bones, or damaged brain tissue. ECT's
primarily homosexuals and frigid women.[16] most universal effect is loss of memory and a
ESB is not only the technology of fascism; it also disorientation in time and space. It is these effects which
reflects its epistomological basis. To advocates of ESB, have made ECT an important technique to employ in
the brain is simply a "material entity located inside the functional brainwashing.
skull which may be inspected, touched, weighed and - In Detroit, ECT is being used to "erase" undesirable
measured. It is composed of chemicals, enzymes, and elements of an individual's personality so that the person
humors which may be analyzed. Its structure is can be"reprogrammed" to function in a more desirable
characterized by neurons, pathways, and synapses which manner. The director of Detroit's brainwashing center,
may be examined directly when they are properly the Institute of Psychosynthesis, is Dr. Tien, a graduate
magnified."[17] of the University of Michigan Medical School. Tien is
Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy: Electroconvulsive quite articulate about the basic principles of brainshock
therapy (ECT) was the first coercive psychiatric washing: "It is not the shock that's important, it's like
technique applied on a massive scale. Closer to pure erasing a blackboard. You're not interested in the
torture than the other techniques, its use was pioneered erasure itself, you're interested in what you can do after
by the Kaiser's Army during World War I -- employed you erase."[18]
as a disciplinary procedure for terrifying and torturing Dr. Tien recommends ECT for any and every kind of
combat fatigue cases back into the trenches. (Chemical psychiatric disorder, including schizophrenia, sexual
shocking agents were used even earlier- perhaps as disorders, alcoholism and even obesity. He also
early as the eighteenth century.) From the late 1930's recommends shock treatment for "normal" individuals
through the mid-1950's, ECT was the dominant who want to function at a higher level. In all cases, he
37
t
"It's not the shock
that' s important,
it's like erasing a
blackboard."