By Kate Augusto and Matt Collette

About 100 people gathered at Raytheon Amphitheatre Monday to hear Kitty Dukakis share her experiences with the controversial depression treatment electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Dukakis, who recently co-wrote a book, “Shock: the Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy,” said she has suffered from mental illness and depression since 1982, which led her to develop drug and alcohol problems. According to the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, ECT is a treatment in which the brain is stimulated by a small amount of electrical current, which produces a seizure that affects the centers of the brain that control mood, appetite and sleep.

“I was a very different human being [before the treatment] than the one you see today,” Dukakis said, while accompanied by husband Michael Dukakis, a distinguished political science professor and former three-time Massachusetts governor, and co-author Larry Tye.

While the Dukakises are confident in the benefits of ECT, other ECT patients think it’s terrible.

“I wouldn’t argue with anyone else who already was subjected to it, but I would go to the ends of the earth to prevent someone else from getting it,” said Dorothy Dundas, a woman in her mid-60s who underwent many ECT treatments at the age of 19.

Dundas is part of MindFreedom International, a non-profit organization that works to show alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities, according to its website. Members of MindFreedom are upset that Kitty’s book does little to show the negative aspects of ECT, despite efforts to get some of the aspects included.

“What we got was one or two sentences [in the book],” said David Oaks, director of MindFreedom International. “There are a string of celebrities that feel they were helped by shock therapy and they come out and sing its praises, but the public is not hearing the other book. The book that should be written ought to tell the nightmare scenario [of ECT].”

While Dundas described her ECT experience as a nightmare that led to memory lapses, Kitty said her depression before the treatment was the real nightmare.

“It’s hard to describe what happens when someone who you love dearly … for reasons that nobody can explain