Electroshock or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an early psychotherapy popular in the first half of the 20th century. Although at the time it was liberally applied anyone with a psychiatric diagnosis, today it is far less common; being only used in severe depression and dissociative states (for which it is very effective and often the only therapy to be so). A patient is anaesthetised and whilst they are unconscious a generalized seizure is induced.