San Diego—A course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) every 9 or 10 months keeps her cyclic depression at bay, Kitty Dukakis said in an invited lecture at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) here in May.
Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, hopes her candor will help counter inaccurate and harrowing portrayals of ECT, such as those in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, based on Ken Kesey's 1962 novel.