A woman in her mid-60s was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was actively suicidal when Ian Cook conducted her first TMS treatment. “Toward the end of that first treatment,” Cook remembers, “she suddenly said, ‘Those thoughts are gone!’
“When she came out of treatment, her partner took one look at her and said, ‘You’re back!’ When I asked her partner to explain, she said my patient’s facial expressions were different, her body language was different, and she was much like herself again.
“A few weeks later, after we did a full series of treatments, my patient said, ‘You know, if this had been around 30 years ago, I would have been spared God knows how many psychiatric hospitalizations, a suicide attempt, two rounds of ECT, and on and on and…