The number of petitions submitted to Connecticut probate court to force a psychiatric patient to undergo electroshock therapy (ECT) skyrocketed in 2025 following year-over-year increases as the controversial practice of forcing the therapy appears to become much more frequent as Medicaid has nearly doubled what it pays out for the treatment.
According to data previously received by Inside Investigator, the number of petitions submitted by hospitals and doctors to probate courts for electroshock treatment increased from 81 in 2015 to 193 in 2024, but, at the time, there was only partial data for 2025.
Doctors previously interviewed by Inside Investigator attributed the year-over-year increase to a return to normal following a decrease during COVID and the fact that some institutions were seeking court petitions regardless of whether a patient’s conservator consented to the treatment.
The latest numbers, however, show there were 335 court petitions for forced treatment in 2025, marking a 74 percent increase in just one year.
Under state statute, a probate court judge can give doctors authority to administer ECT to a patient against their will if that patient is incapable of giving informed consent and there are no other less obtrusive and beneficial treatments; two doctors and the head of the hospital must all testify that the treatment is necessary. The order allows the treatment to be administered for 45 days, whereupon the hospital must get another court order.
Although a patient can appeal a probate court decision, that appeal does not result in a stay; instead, the doctors move forward with treatment while the appeal is pending.
Most of the petitions were to probate courts in areas of the state that contain inpatient state psychiatric facilities , like Middletown and New Haven, although there were also high numbers for the Farmington probate court where UConn Health is located. But the dramatic increase also coincided with a dramatic increase in what Medicaid will pay for the treatment.
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicaid increased the payout for ECT from $385.58 in 2024 to $661.52 in 2025, writing that “We believe this increase will help ensure that the patients who need ECT are more able to access it.
Individuals who have received the treatment, and who spoke with Inside Investigator previously, offered a range of experiences from negative to positive, and while the psychiatric community claims a roughly 60-70 percent success rate in treating chronic mental health issues using ECT, the number of petitions indicates ECT is being used more often against patients’ will.
Despite the requirements to obtain a probate court order to administer ECT, those laws aren’t always followed or have been used to excess. A woman who was forcibly shocked 500 times eventually won her appeal against the probate judge’s last ruling in 2025; the state-run Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown was seeking another petition.
In this case, the judge did grant the patient an injunction against further treatment while the appeal was pending. The appeals judge found a lack of evidence that the 70-year-old patient was incapable of giving informed consent.
Electroshock therapy was once widely used and overprescribed and eventually fell out of favor in the 1970s and 1980s as social movements led by former patients began to get state laws passed that made it more difficult to administer the treatment. However, it never really fell out of favor with psychiatrists and over the past ten years has been used with more frequency following some updates to how the treatment is administered.
Most estimates place the number of individuals receiving ECT in a given year at roughly one hundred thousand, and it is generally considered a treatment of last resort, although that appears to be changing.
While doctors acknowledge they don’t understand how or why the treatment works, it appears to be beneficial for those dealing with chronic, long-term mental health issues, particularly depression, where other treatments have failed.
A 2025 bill that would have doubled the number of days a court can authorize ECT treatment came before the Public Health Committee with strong backing from doctors and hospitals and opposition from former patients and mental health advocates.
The legislation was considered in a public hearing but never made it through the committee.
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