In an attempt to explore the explanations why psychiatrists continue to use electroshock with minors already at risk from damage, this text investigates reasons why electroshock remains popular, despite the widespread availability of proven psychosocial alternatives. The text locates all of the literature since the 1940s about the use of electroshock with minors from three years of age through adolescence.

Since the introduction of shock with children and teenagers, the province of psychiatry has been expanded to include minors as young as three. A fifty-year overview of shock use by...