Patients' Stories

The general public is largely unaware of the improvements in safety and memory preservation in ECT procedures

Carol A. Kivler, MS, CSP, President of Kivler Communications, is a highly respected and experienced speaker, author, international executive coach/consultant, passionate mental health consumer advocate and founder of Courageous Recovery. Through Courageous Recovery, she shares her personal experiences with depression, treatment, Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) and recovery.

In Struck by Living, Julie Hersh picks apart the irony of her life with humor and brutal honesty. Despite a loving husband, healthy children, financial security, Julie attempted suicide three times. With the help of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), Julie broke the deadly course of her disorder. Now well, Julie promotes the importance of mental health with collaborations with other artists and organizations.

3,000 Pulses Later describes how Martha Rhodes, a successful advertising executive, wife, and mother with a seemingly ideal life succumbed to depression and overdosed on Xanax and alcohol in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. The memoir describes her challenges with untreated, drug-resistant depression and her struggle to find an alternative to the medications that failed to relieve her symptoms. After a grueling stay in a psychiatric ward and many months of trial-and-error medications, Rhodes pursued TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation—the FDA cleared, safe, and proven-effective therapy alternative. 3,000 Pulses Later shares how the road back to health with TMS returned her to an even better place than where she started. She now manages her depression with TMS therapy and without the side effects attributable to antidepressant medications.