Users and Abusers of Psychiatry by Johnstone Lucy

Author:Johnstone, Lucy.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780203129630
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Insulin coma therapy

As well as controlling diabetes, insulin was thought to have a calming effect on psychotic patients. It was believed that the best results were obtained by using extremely high doses which put ‘schizophrenic’ patients into life-threatening comas, closely supervised by trained staff in special units. Thirty to forty comas constituted a complete course, and magical results were claimed. Patients, however, experienced intense fear, as well as ravenous hunger and a feeling of suffocation, and a proportion of them actually died. It was not until twenty years later, by which time it was widely used, that a thorough study showed that the insulin itself had no therapeutic effect at all,14 and that any improvements had to be attributable to the attention and expectations surrounding the treatment rather than to the treatment itself.

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