electro shock therapy, also called 'electro convulsive therapy' (ect).est involves the application of an electric shock of about 80 volts passed through electrodes placed on the head. EsT is used by patients with psychotic mood disorders, people who need a really fast response, medication nonresponders, and for those who cannot tolerate antidepressant medication. ECT is indicated when rapid results are vital, as with suicidal patients or those who refuse to eat or drink.ect was 'invented' by Dr. Ugo Cerletti in 1938, when he became interested that pigs were prepared for slaughter by being electrically shocked through the temples. This rendered them unconscious but did not kill them, indeed they could survive the shock if allowed to recover. Deciding to try it on his patients Dr Cerletti found such electric shocks caused his obsessive and difficult mental patients to become meek and manageable.est has had and does have many resistance, because, it was said, est treatments risk limbic damage in the brain leading to retarded speed, coordination, handwriting, concentration, attention span, memory, response flexibility, retention, and re-education. On the psychological side, fear of ECT has produced stress ulcers, renal disease, confusion, amnesic withdrawal, and resistance to re-educative or psychological therapy. in the 1970s est was abolished as inhuman, but today it is having a sort of come-back, now technologies are more spcified and psychiatry is focussing more and more on the physiological aspects of mental diseases.the line 'same p.r. (public relations) problem as est' refers to the resistence against est. in you love us the manics equate their performance and their lyrics with AN electro shock THERAPY: everyone will be blasted out by them and so they have the same pr problem dealing with controversy.protagonists of sylvia plath's the bell jar and ken kesey's one flew over the coockoo's nest [book] get electro shock therapy.