Dr Wiliam Sargant, Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at St Thomas’ was a leading proponent of physical treatments for mental illness. These kinds of treatments were also described as ‘somatic’ or ‘mechanistic’ therapies. Dr Sargant had trained and qualified as a psychiatrist during the1930s when many of these ‘mechanistic’ treatments including Narcosis, ECT, ether abreaction and insulin coma were introduced which may explain why he clung on to them even when they were proved to have been ineffective and and in some cases actually dangerous. Some have maintained that Dr Sargant was a pioneer in the field of psychiatry, but this is far from the truth since the evidence shows that Dr Sargant was more of a dinosaur than a pioneer.

Dr John Pollitt was much less forthcoming about his use of mechanistic therapies but nevertheless he subjected his patients to exactly the same treatment that Dr Sargant’s patients endured.