Why was Sigmund Unsuccessful in Treating Heather?

[Tartar]

One of the most infamous scenes in Reborn is without a doubt was when Sigmund took Heather into custody right after Corey committed suicide, and proceeded to use shock therapy to try and treat her catatonic mental state. 

Originally I chalked his behaviour up to him being evil and using the poor girl as a lab-rat for an experiment that didn't actually serve to cure her. But after some further research, I realised that electroconvulsive therapy is in fact used to treat several mental disorders, including catatonia and depression to very successful results. 

 

So my question is thus: Why did the therapy not have any effect on Heather? It seemed to have literally no effect on her condition or merely served to make it worse. Why is this? For all intents and purposes, it should have snapped her out of her mental state, should it not?

 

Edit: I seem to have misremembered a crucial detail about this scene. Heather went catatonic as a result of the ECT and not the other way around. This invalidates the premise of the post.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Tartar

[Lord Drakyle]

Pardon, but I thought she spoke before he took her in for 'treatment' and it was after that she stopped speaking? I should also point out we have no idea what kinda voltage he was putting through her compared to how it is done IRL so it's pretty hard to make a judgement on why it 'failed' assuming it didn't cause the catatonic state in the first place

[laggless01]

12 minutes ago, Tartar said:

One of the most infamous scenes in Reborn is without a doubt was when Sigmund took Heather into custody right after Corey committed suicide, and proceeded to use shock therapy to try and treat her catatonic mental state. 

Originally I chalked his behaviour up to him being evil and using the poor girl as a lab-rat for an experiment that didn't actually serve to cure her. But after some further research, I realised that electroconvulsive therapy is in fact used to treat several mental disorders, including catatonia and depression to very successful results. 

 

So my question is thus: Why did the therapy not have any effect on Heather? It seemed to have literally no effect on her condition or merely served to make it worse. Why is this? For all intents and purposes, it should have snapped her out of her mental state, should it not?

I'm not sure that's how it works, hooking someone up once or twice isn't necessarily going to create lasting mental effects (besides possibly traumatizing the patient).
Also, he was unable to do do further research legally, so his technique is possibly flawed (not to mention rumours of children dying by his experiments).

[Farnsworth]

I don't think that Heather had any mental condition/problem, she was just in shock after her father's death. It's natural to act the way she did, especially for young children. The shock therapy only served to traumatize her even further, which is why her depression worsened. You don't go treating depressed/sad people by shocking them, it's something that will pass with time. This can be observed after we met her in Ametrine, she was back to normal (or at least not the same as she was after the death), she just needed some time to heal. 

[Tartar]

2 minutes ago, Farnsworth said:

I don't think that Heather had any mental condition/problem, she was just in shock after her father's death. It's natural to act the way she did, especially for young children. The shock therapy only served to traumatize her even further, which is why her depression worsened. 

1

Well, she was clearly in shock and very depressed. Which should qualify her for being a possible candidate for treatment (Ame or Kurotsune, please correct me since I'm likely wrong). And if done correctly, it shouldn't traumatize her. So therefore the question, what went wrong in the treatment?

 

2 minutes ago, Farnsworth said:

You don't go treating depressed/sad people by shocking them

 

 

Actually, that's exactly when you do it. 

 

 

[Felicity]

because ECT is an outdated and ridiculous treatment. You evidently didn't do much research because ECT is largely studied academically rather than put into practice, examiners in psychology will mark you down for not stating ECT is a historical treatment. Further, I doubt sigmund even did the procedure properly (having one node placed on top of the head and on on the temple) so there's even less chance it had any positive impact at all.

 

What I remember of the course is that ECT impacts the brains neurotransmitters, which most think play a key role in mental disorders, too much dopamine for example is thought to be a cause for schizophrenia. However you can't control how that change actually happens and is likely to fuck you up more oft than not. 

 

EDIT and of course its traumatising, someone abducted her and shocked her against her will. Electricity will only make that go away if it gives her short term memory loss.

[Farnsworth]

12 minutes ago, Tartar said:

Well, she was clearly in shock and very depressed. Which should qualify her for being a possible candidate for treatment (Ame or Kurotsune, please correct me since I'm likely wrong). And if done correctly, it shouldn't traumatize her. So therefore the question, what went wrong in the treatment?

 

Actually, that's exactly when you do it. 

 

 

 

I don't know much about shock therapy, in fact I never heard it was a thing in the real world until now. I just seems, so... unethical. I've read about it and it seems ECT is only used as a second-line treatment to things like Catatonia (only used first if the condition is life threatening, which in Heather's case it clearly isn't). Also, there is a lack of clinical evidence supporting ECT being effective. Also for things like depression ECT is only used if other treatments have failed or if the condition is life threatening.

It seems like electroconvulsive therapy is something that isn't generally advisable to use, it should only be used as a last resort. Not to mention I don't think the shocks from an Electivire can be comparable to the shocks used in ECT.

 

EDIT:

As stated above it's a outdated treatment which is only used when everything else fails (because I guess it is better than letting the person die).

Edited December 10, 2016 by Farnsworth

[DerogatoryTrainer]

18 minutes ago, Tartar said:

Well, she was clearly in shock and very depressed.

 

 

That's only after she got zapped.

She was upset after Corey's death but still her bratty self.

[Tartar]

15 minutes ago, Dobby said:

 

because ECT is an outdated and ridiculous treatment. You evidently didn't do much research because ECT is largely studied academically rather than put into practice,

 

 

Pardon me if this is wrong. But according to this study about 1 million patients receive ECT every year. Am I misunderstanding something, because from what I've read, and been told, it is a widely used and effective technique?

 

6 minutes ago, DerogatoryTrainer said:

 

That's only after she got zapped.

She was upset after Corey's death but still her bratty self.

 

On rewatching the scene, I seem to have gotten this part wrong. When taken in by Sigmund she started panicking and becoming violent which led Sigmund to try ECT on her, and then she went catatonic as a result. 

I'll revise the original post, since I still feel this thread doesn't seem very relevant anymore.

 

 

 

 

[Egzample]

As people mentioned above, shock therapy IS a thing, and nowadays, it is painless (using right amperage and voltage matters), and what`s more, it has been reported effective and because of it favoured by patients over farmaceutics and their side effects, but it causes some mostly scientific controversy - effects doesnt seem to be permanent, in some cases lasting for days at best. Anyway, it isn`t very popular treatment, and surely wouldn`t be used in treating post-trauma shock, as in Heather`s case, so we can agree that it was abuse. And this isnt medical forum about medical simulator, as fas as I know...

Kind of Ninja`d, heh.

Edited December 11, 2016 by example

[Felicity]

1 million of 7 billion, the study states that is on a worldwide scale, do you wanna explain to me how that's widely used? Think about that in percentage. The average uses of ECT would be a real small number in individual countries and that doesn't even say that the treatments are effective. Also, you're cherry picking that fact from the start of the study when if you read a little further down it aims to provide that kind of data late on. It comments

 

" On the whole, there seems to be a paucity of updated ECT utilization surveys, reviews, and data. There is, therefore, an imminent need for a systematic international review concerning contemporary use of ECT. Against this background, the main objective of this article is to give a systematic contemporary overview (from 1990) of the extent to which ECT is used worldwide. "

 

so please read your source before citing it.

 

[ZEL]

If you look at the situation at hand, then Heather didn't show any signs of unusual behavior at the point she was taken. She was upset because she found out her father was a criminal and then he killed himself. I'd have been more concerned if she had been calm and collected.

What she could have used is counseling, but even that can't be forced and needs time and patience.

It's also worth noting that a psychiatrist wouldn't just grab a patient and put them in therapy right on the first day of their arrival in the institution.

Sigmund did not take anywhere close to enough time to properly assess Heather's health and state of mind. He literally just snagged a little girl off the street after her father died, then subjected her to shock therapy without consent. Even if we assume that his methods work in Rebornverse, every patient needs to be judged individually, and no therapy method is a "cure all" that you can just apply to anyone. It's outright stated that Sigmund just uses his shock therapy on everyone in his care, regardless of what condition they may or may not be in. He cannot have and definitely did not take time to figure out if Heather would benefit from it.

[5hift]

I thought Sugmund was zapping her because she was giving him lip.

 

You'd think there'd need to be some paperwork done before the procedure but he went ahead and did it.

 

Meanwhile you're sitting outside and thinking "Wow what is this sick fuck doing to her?".

Edited December 11, 2016 by 5hift