02/09/2026
Lisa is such an amazing lady - one of life’s truly beautiful souls 💜
I had the pleasure of working with Lisa through her advocacy work with “A New Script for Mental Health” where one of the group’s aim was to raise awareness of the harms of overprescribing and side effects to medications.
Lisa, thank you for continuing to use your voice and speak up on these issues.
Please jump into Belfast Lives comment section and show Lisa your support 🙌🏻
This is Lisa Morrison, a Belfast r**e survivor who says electroshock therapy left her more unwell and robbed her of significant chunks of her memory.
Lisa is the lead author of a new study into electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which sometimes involves patients being shocked while fully awake and is given to around 2,500 people each year in the UK.
The new research has shown that women are being given ECT at far higher rates than men and are more likely to suffer long-term memory loss and other harmful effects.
For some survivors of sexual violence, who are more likely to be treated with ECT, the therapy was described as "another kind of r**e - but of the mind".
Lisa says that repeated inpatient admissions and treatment with psychiatric drugs and ECT left her "more and more unwell".
"The many diagnoses I received reinforced in me the devastating messages so many women internalise - I'm to blame. I'm bad.
"This is my shame," she said.
Lisa admitted how the treatment left her struggling with memory loss, losing a "whole year" of her life.
She said: "It was a few years after all the treatments ended that I realised significant chunks of my memory, especially of my children, were gone. It's of my two-year-old son.
"I had a career break to look after him. I cannot remember doing this.
"A whole year of my life. And my daughter was only four at the time.
"Blank."
She added: "Realising I wasn't told the truth, not offered appropriate alternatives and now living with the devastating consequences of this invasive treatment, does feel like another kind of r**e."
