Definition of "shock therapy" []

• Any of various treatments for mental disorders, such as major depression or schizophrenia, in which a convulsion or brief coma is induced by administering a drug or passing an electric current through the brain. Also called shock treatment. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Even in Russia, many were willing to endure shock therapy as the best means to reach Washington Consensus–based policies, because the Asian financial crisis, still three years away, had not yet called the consensus into question."