More Involuntary ECT Petitions Might Just Mean More ECT

Inside Investigator published a news article by Marc E. Fitch this March which showed that in 2024 Connecticut probate court judges approved twice as many petitions to deliver enforced ECT than they had ten years ago. That court ordered ECT was done on patients who were deemed incompetent to voluntarily assent to ECT and who had simply refused ECT treatment.

There were only 81 petitions for forced ECT in 2015. In 2024 there were 193 such petitions, mostly from Connecticut’s high population centers where the state-run psychiatric hospitals exist or from New Haven, where Yale’s psychiatric hospital is located. The vast majority of these petitions to deliver involuntary ECT were approved…