The Effect of Insulin Coma Therapy upon Vocabulary

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This investigation was undertaken to study the effect of insulin coma therapy upon vocabulary. Though there is relatively little published information on the subject of vocabulary and insulin coma therapy, this subject can be incorporated into the broader study of the effect of insulin coma treatment upon the memory, with a review first of the effect of electro-shock therapy upon the memory. In these areas there is a wider range of material. Chapter I will begin with the effect of electro-shock therapy upon memory. The chapter will continue with the effect of insulin coma therapy upon memory, and then discuss vocabulary as an index of memory functioning. THE EFFECTS OF ELECTRO-SHOCK THERAPY UPON MEMORY The literature reports many studies supporting the hypothesis that electro-shock therapy ( EST ) causes memory loss. Some authors consider the loss due to organic brain damage, while others attribute the loss to emotional factors. One of the supporters of the latter alternative is Joseph Zubin (1948). In discussing the hypothesis that a patient recovers as a result of EST because his memory for adverse events is obliterated, Zubin acknowledged that much more experimental evidence would have to be gathered to make the hypothesis tenable. He felt that the most spectacular failure of personal memory occurred in changes in the patient\u27s feelings of familiarity with his surroundings. The changes in feelings of familiarity concerned both a loss of familiarity for previous familiar surroundings, and a feeling of familiarity for surroundings never before observed or experienced. Since familiarity embraces both memory and emotional content, it was Zubin\u27s conclusion that possibly raising of the familiarity threshold is the condition that frees the patient of his anxieties