Over the past several decades, psychopharmacological treatments in psychiatry have been subjected to intensive methodological scrutiny in the continual assessment of their efficacy and safety. Although one of the most dramatic and controversial therapeutic approaches in psychiatry, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has not received the same concentrated, systematic attention. Through a comprehensive literature search, the present authors have attempted to provide answers relating to the efficacy and the safety of conventional ECT and some of its more prominent variations. Although specific discernible trends are reported in the text, results of the survey are too disparate for a simplistic summary statement to be made regarding efficacy in all diagnostic categories. As with most somatic treatments in psychiatry, bilateral ECT does present some apparent risk, reduced but not entirely eliminated by precautionary techniques, which must be weighed against the possible benefits to be derived in a given case. Other variations of ECT offer promise of fewer side effects but must be accepted as standard clinical practice.