when a fellow student showed her the refreshing article by prof rodding she noted that the treatment offered by the practitioners in their rural backwater was not only far more humane but also infinitely more effective than the standard responses to depression that were meted out to patients in the mental hospital ; a diet of valium for those who knew how to behave quietly , straightjackets for those clawed at their own skin and a course of six electric shocks to the head when all else failed .