Brain Reboot: New Treatments for Healing Depression

Psychiatrist and Director of the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program at Massachusetts General looks at the three new alternate–deemed miraculous–treatments for depression: ECT, Ketamine, and TMS. Depression affects eleven million people in the United States alone and 300 million people worldwide. It ruins lives, careers, families, and love of life. We often think of pharmaceutical treatments at the best way to treat depression, but the truth is that they don’t work for everyone or they lose their efficacy for a third to half of all people with clinical depression. But help is on the way in the form of three alternative treatments coming to the forefront: electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), ketamine, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Curing people of depression is Dr. Michael Henry’s life’s work. As one of the foremost doctors in ECT, Dr. Henry sets out to show readers that these three treatments, which are fraught with stereotypes and mystery, are actually miraculous–and proven to be so. Often, they can serve as a brain reboot to get trusted medications to start working again. While these are not treatments you can do yourself–nor are they always easy to obtain–Dr. Henry sheds light where is little, offers sufferers options, and looks to the future of depression treatment.

Brain Reboot provides a balanced, evidence-based humanized guide to these three treatments. It also focuses on the practical steps people need to take to get these treatments, as well as how family and friends can support someone undergoing treatment, and discusses emerging technology that is complementary to treatment.