Married to Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, she became a proponent of electroshock therapy after unsuccessful treatments for alcoholism and depression.

By Katharine Q. Seelye

March 22, 2025

Updated 12:10 p.m. ET

Kitty Dukakis, an activist first lady of Massachusetts and humanitarian who overcame alcoholism and depression with the help of electroconvulsive therapy, then became a proponent of the treatment with her husband, Michael S. Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, died on Friday night at her home in Brookline, Mass. She was 88.

Her son, John, said the cause was complications of dementia.

Mrs. Dukakis “lived a full life fighting to make the world a better place and sharing her vulnerabilities to help others face theirs,” her family said in a statement.

Mrs. Dukakis was a longtime activist on behalf of underdogs and people who struggled. Among the subjects most important to her was continuing education on the Holocaust. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the first President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which sought to create a national memorial and museum; when that panel was replaced a decade later by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, she was appointed to the council by President George H.W. Bush.

“Perhaps in the entire history of civilization, the Holocaust was the most important object lesson in man’s inhumanity to man,” she told the National Governors Association in 1983.

Few political wives have been as forthright as Mrs. Dukakis in sharing the intimate details of their struggles with addiction and depression. She wrote two books that revealed in painful detail her early dependence on diet pills, how alcoholism later took over her life and how she turned, at age 64, to electroshock therapy to treat the crippling depression that she said had long been masked by her drinking.

Her successful electroshock treatment led her and her husband to publicly advocate for the effectiveness of the procedure, and even to hold support groups at their home.

Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts said in a statement on Saturday that Mrs. Dukakis “spoke courageously about her struggles with substance use disorder and mental health, which serves as an inspiration to us all to break down stigma and seek help.”

But for most of her time in the spotlight, Mrs. Dukakis carefully concealed her drinking and her depression.

She worked as a modern dance teacher and immersed herself in numerous causes as her husband pursued his political career. Passionately committed to helping the underdog, she devoted herself to projects involving the homeless, refugees, AIDS and the Holocaust.

Her successful electroshock treatment led her and her husband to publicly advocate for the effectiveness of the procedure, and even to hold support groups at their home.

Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts said in a statement on Saturday that Mrs. Dukakis “spoke courageously about her struggles with substance use disorder and mental health, which serves as an inspiration to us all to break down stigma and seek help.”

But for most of her time in the spotlight, Mrs. Dukakis carefully concealed her drinking and her depression.

She worked as a modern dance teacher and immersed herself in numerous causes as her husband pursued his political career. Passionately committed to helping the underdog, she devoted herself to projects involving the homeless, refugees, AIDS and the Holocaust.

She and her husband cut strikingly different figures. He was the cool, calm technocrat, frugal and measured, who shopped at Costco, picked up litter while walking to work and issued all-points bulletins for Thanksgiving turkey carcasses that would otherwise be discarded so he could make soup for the next year. She, on the other hand, was expressive, impulsive and a spendthrift, partial to shopping at Whole Foods, flying first class and using her clout to get what she wanted.

Their attraction as opposites became part of the narrative of the 1988 presidential campaign, when he was the Democratic nominee. The initial perception of her as a high-strung, demanding spouse, not to mention a liability, evolved into one of her as a close working partner who humanized her husband. Campaign aides were not displeased that Mr. Dukakis forgot he was wearing a live wire when, after several days apart, he was reunited with his wife to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Chicago and the whole country heard him whisper to her: “Tonight if I’m asleep, wake me up. Don’t let a moment go by.”

Perhaps the most enduring public moment for Mrs. Dukakis during the campaign was a debate question posed about her. The debate moderator, Bernard Shaw of CNN, had asked Mr. Dukakis: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

“No, I don’t, Bernard,” Mr. Dukakis replied without emotion before reaffirming his opposition to the death penalty and discussing his record on crime. Analysts called the response tone-deaf, one of the worst in presidential debate history, and said that it helped sink Mr. Dukakis’s chances against his opponent, Vice President George H.W. Bush, who went on to win 40 states and the presidency.

Kitty Dukakis was embarrassed, she later told reporters. She was also livid and called the question outrageous and inappropriate.

“Thank God I’m not the candidate,” she said hotly, “because I don’t know what I would have done.”

Katharine Dickson was born on Dec. 26, 1936, in Cambridge, Mass., and grew up in nearby Brookline. She adored her father, Harry Ellis Dickson, who was a first violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a conductor of the Boston Pops.

She had a more prickly relationship with her mother, Jane (Goldberg) Dickson, whom Mrs. Dukakis described as an exacting perfectionist whose standards were almost impossible to meet. In her first book, “Now You Know,” published in 1990, Mrs. Dukakis recalled that her mother had told her that she was pretty but that her younger sister, Jinny, had personality. That and many similar comments, Mrs. Dukakis said, fed the low self-esteem that plagued her all her life.

She attended Penn State but dropped out in 1957 to marry John Chaffetz, with whom she had a son, John. She and Mr. Chaffetz divorced a few years later. She received her B.A. from Lesley College in 1963, the same year she married Mr. Dukakis. In 1982 she received her M.A. from Boston University College of Communication.

helped her quit alcohol and cigarettes and allowed her to confront emotions long out of reach.

“It is not ECT per se that is curing me of those bad habits,” she wrote. “It is staying well enough for long enough that I can start looking at behaviors I want to change.”

She added, “I hate losing memories, which means losing control over my past and my mind, but the control ECT gives me over my disabling depression is worth this relatively minor cost. It just is.”

A correction was made on March 22, 2025: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of the headline with this obituary misstated Mrs. Dukakis’s age. As the obituary correctly states, she was 88, not 99.

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That was a different time

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6za7fdFRpo&t=179s

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