Celia Imrie Recounts Traumatic Electroconvulsive Therapy for Teenage Anorexia

Celia Imrie, the 74-year-old actress, has shared her deeply distressing experience with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) at the age of 14, undertaken to treat her teenage anorexia. Imrie revealed in her autobiography that the treatment, administered at St. Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth under the controversial Dr. William Sargant, left her traumatized and witnessing other women being subjected to what she described as assaults.

Imrie developed anorexia nervosa after failing to gain admission to the Royal Ballet School. Her subsequent hospitalization involved Sargant's methods, which included ECT, antipsychotic drugs, and sedatives. The actress recalled the stark memory of a place known as the Sleep Room, where patients were kept in a drug-induced slumber for extended periods, subjected to programmed instructions. While her memories of this time are fragmented, the smell of the room remains a potent, unpleasant recollection.

Imrie attributes her recovery not to Sargant's treatments, but to a stark challenge from a nurse who pointed out she was occupying a bed needed by a sicker child. Imrie described this encounter as a