Shock Treatment

In the new Clint Eastwood film, "Changeling", there is a scene of real horror when a friend of the main character, played by Angelina Jolie, is forced to undergo electric shock treatment in an asylum in twenties America. Clint, of course, knows how to raise the temperature when directing violent sequences (I find it hard to watch some of his late westerns) and succeeds here in making you feel almost that you are experiencing it yourself.
I once wrote a letter to The Guardian expressing my horror at something the paper had reported: the enforced electric shock treatment given to a Catholic priest. The letter was published and elicited a series of letters to me: most thought that I myself must have suffered the same thing - not so; or that a member of my family had suffered thus - not so; or that I or a close relation had suffered or was suffering mental probelms and that we feared such treatment may be practiced on us - not so. One person thought I must be a Catholic and that my sympathy for the priest was a consequence of my own belief. I'm not a Catholic so not so.
Thank Heavens such barbaric treatment for mental illness is no longer used.
I once knew someone who had received such treatment when he had had a breakdown; he never talked about it ( a friend of his told me). Later when he got back to normal, so to speak, he became a successful writer of detective stories with about 50 novels published.
You must not draw any conclusions from those two happenings: that the second was due to the first.
Again, not so.