Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the oldest interventions in psychiatry. Like many aging celebrity rock-stars of the 1960s, ECT has outlived critics who predicted its early demise and in fact continues to create a bigger bang than it did at inception (http://www.rollingstones.com/abiggerbang/). ECT owes its longevity largely to a series of well-conducted trials since the 1970s that secured its endorsement by special committees and task forces of national associations (American Psychiatric Association, 2001; Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1995), and guideline developers (Bauer et al., 2002; Fochtmann and Gelenberg, 2005; Kennedy et al., 2001; NICE, 2003).