Self-administered electroconvulsive treatment with a homemade device

Two patients with personality disorder and depression attempted to self-administer electroconvulsive therapy with a home-made device. The patients showed no proper psychopathological improvement after these attempts. Both of the patients' temples were seriously burned, and one of them required skin grafting. Both patients rejected to have reasonable psychosocial support, and followed a cult mental health manual in attempting to self-administer electroconvulsive therapy. To our knowledge, this is only the second report of its kind. The intractable psychopathology, poor interpersonal skills, and misleading information seemed to lead to the self-harm behaviors of our 2 patients.