Summary: In view of the reported promiscuous and indiscriminate use of electroshock therapy, your Committee on Therapy decided to devote its first meeting to an evaluation of the role of this type of therapy in psychiatry. Both the extravagant claims as to its efficacy made by its proponents and the uninformed condemnation of its use at all by its opponents indicate the emotional aura which surrounds this whole topic.

Authors - Committee on Therapy, The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, September 15, 1947