Lobotomy (from the Greek lobos, meaning lobes of the brain, and tomos, meaning cut) is a psychosurgical procedure in which the connections the prefrontal cortex and underlying structures are severed, or the frontal cortical tissue is destroyed, the theory being that this leads to the uncoupling of the brain's emotional centres and the seat of intellect (in the subcortical structures and the frontal cortex, respectively).
The lobotomy was first performed on humans in the 1890s. About half a century later, it was being touted by some as a miracle cure for mental illness, and its use became widespread; during its heyday in the 1940s and '50s, the lobotomy was performed on some 40,000 patients in the United States, and on around 10,000 in Western Europe. The procedure became popular because there was no alternative, and because it was seen to alleviate several social crises: overcrowding in psychiatric institutions, and the increasing cost of caring for mentally ill patients.
Although psychosurgery has been performed since the dawn of civilization, the origins of the modern lobotomy are found in animal experiments carried out towards the end of the nineteenth century. The German physiologist Friedrich Goltz (1834-1902) performed ablations of the neocortex in dogs, and observed the changes in behaviour that occurred as a result:
I have mentioned that dogs with a large lesion in the anterior part of the brain generally show a change in character in the sense that they become excited and quite apt to become irate. Dogs with large lesions of the occipital lobe on the other hand become sweet and harmless, even when they were quite nasty before.
These findings inspired the physician Gottlieb Burkhardt (1836- ?), the director of a small asylum in Prefargier, Switzerland, to use ablations of the cortex to try and cure his mentally ill patients. In 1890, Burkhardt removed parts of the frontal cortex from 6 of his schizophrenic patients. One of these patients later committed suicide, and another died within one week of his surgery. Thus, although Burkhardt believed that his method had been somewhat successful, he faced strong opposition, and stopped experimenting with brian surgery.
It was not until the 1930s that lobotomy was again performed on humans. The modern procedure was pioneered at that time by the Portugese neuropsychiatrist Antonio Egas Moniz, a professor at the University of Lisbon Medical School. While attending a frontal lobe symposium in London, Moniz learned of the work of Carlyle Jacobsen and John Fulton, both of whom were experimental neurologists at Yale University.
Jacobsen and Fulton reported that frontal and prefrontal cortical damage in chimpanzees led to a massive reduction in aggression, while complete removal of the frontal cortex led to the inability to induce experimental neuroses in the chimps. Here, they describe the post-operational behaviour of a chimp named "Becky", who had previously got extremely distressed after making mistakes during the task she had learnt:
The chimpanzee...went to the experimental cage. The usual procedure of baiting the cup and lowering the opaque screen was followed...If the animal made a mistake, it showed no evidence of emotional disturbance but quietly awaited the loading of the cups for the next trial. It was as if the animal had joined the "happiness cult of the Elder Micheaux," and had placed its burdens on the Lord!
On hearing the presentation by Jacobsen and Fulton, Moniz asked if the surgical procedure would be beneficial for people with otherwise untreatable psychoses. Although the Yale researchers were shocked by the question, Moniz, together with his colleague Almeida Lima, operated on his first patient some three months later.
On November, 12th, 1935, Moniz and Lima performed for the first time what they called a prefrontal leucotomy ("white matter cutting"). The operation was carried out on a female manic depressive patient, and lasted about 30 minutes. The patient was first anaesthetized, and her skull was trepanned on both sides (that is, holes were drilled through the bone). Then, absolute alcohol was injected through the holes in the skull, into the white matter beneath the prefrontal area.
In this way, two of the bundles of nerve fibres connecting the frontal cortex and the thalamus were severed. (The thalamus is a subcortical structure that relays sensory information to the neocortex, and the thalamo-cortical projections are called the corona radiata.) Moniz reported that the patient seemed less anxious and paranoid afterwards, and pronounced the operation a success. Subsequently, he and Lima used a knife, which, when inserted through the holes in skull and moved back and forth within the brain substance would sever the thalamo-cortical connections. They later developed a special wire knife called a leucotome, which had an open steel loop at its end; when closed, the loop severed the nerve tracts within it.
These procedures were "blind" - the exact path of the leucotome could not be determined, so the operations produced mixed results. In some cases, there were improvements in behaviour; in others, there was no noticable difference; and in yet others, the symptoms being treated became markedly worse. In all, Moniz and Lima operated on approximately 50 patients. The best results were obtained in patients with mood disorders, while the treatment was least effective in schizophrenics.
In 1936, Moniz published his findings in medical journals, and travelled to London, where he presented his work to others in the medical community. In 1949, he was shot four times by one of his patients (not one who had been lobotomized); one of the bullets entered his spine and remained lodged there until his death some years later. In the same year as the shooting, Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, for his innovations in neurosurgery.
The American clinical neurologst Walter Freeman (1895-1972) had been following the work of Moniz closely, and had also attended the symposium on the frontal lobe. It was Freeman who introduced the lobotomoy to the United States, and who would later become the biggest advocate of the technique. With neurosurgeon James Watts, Freeman refined the technique developed by Moniz. They changed the name of the technique to "lobotomy", to emphasize that it was white and grey matter that was being destroyed.
The Freeman-Watts Standard Procedure was used for the first time in September 1936. Also known as "the precision method", this involved inserting a blunt spatula through holes in both sides of the skull; the instrument was moved up and down to sever the thalamo-cortical fibers (above). However, Freeman was unhappy with the new procedure. He considered it to be both time-consuming and messy, and so developed a quicker method, the so-called "ice-pick"lobotomy, which he performed for the first time on January 17th, 1945.
With the patient rendered unconscious by electroshock, an instrument was inserted above the eyeball through the orbit using a hammer. Once inside the brain, the instrument was moved back and forth; this was then repeated on the other side. (The ice-pick lobotomy, named as such because the instrument used resembled the tool with which ice is broken, is therefore also known as the transorbital lobotomy. The photograph at the top shows Freeman performing the procedure on an unidentified patient.)
Freeman's new technique could be performed in about 10 minutes. Because it did not require anaesthesia, it could be performed outside of the clinical setting, and lobotomized patients did not need hospital internment afterwards. Thus, Freeman often performed lobotomies in his Washington D.C. office, much to the horror of Watts, who would later dissociate himself from his former colleague and the procedure.
Freeman happily performed ice-pick lobotomies on anyone who was referred to him. During his career, he would perform almost 3,500 operations. Like the leucotomies performed by Moniz and Lima, those performed by Freeman were blind, and also gave mixed results. Some of his patients could return to work, while others were left in something like a vegetative state.
Most famously, Freeman lobotomized President John F. Kennedy's sister Rosemary, who was incapacitated by the operation, which was performed on her when she was 23 years of age. And, on December 16th, 1960, Freeman notoriosly performed an ice-pick lobotomy on a 12-year-old boy named Howard Dully, at the behest of Dully's stepmother, who had grown tired of his defiant behaviour.
My stepmother hated me. I never understood why, but it was clear she'd do anything to get rid of me...If you saw me you'd never know I'd had a lobotomy.
The only thing you'd notice is that I'm very tall and weigh about 350 pounds. But I've always felt different - wondered if something's missing from my soul. I have no memory of the operation, and never had the courage to ask my family about it.
So [recently] I set out on a journey to learn everything I could about my lobotomy...It took me years to get my life together. Through it all I've been haunted by questions: 'Did I do something to deserve this?, Can I ever be normal?', and, most of all, 'Why did my dad let this happen?'
Howard Dully during his ice-pick lobotomy, Dec. 16th, 1960.
(George Washington University Gelman Library)
Dully's mother had died when he was 5 years old, and his father subsequently remarried a woman named Lou. Freeman's notes later revealed that Lou Dully feared her stepson, and described him as "defiant and savage-looking". According to the notes:
He doesn't react to either love or punishment. He objects to going to to bed but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked about it says 'I don't know.' He turns the room's lights on when there is broad daylight outside.
Freeman recorded the events leading up to Dully's lobotomy:
[Nov. 30, 1960] Mrs. Dully came in for a talk about Howard. Things have gotten much worse and she can barely endure it. I explained to Mrs. Dully that the family should consider the possibility of changing Howard's personality by means of transorbital lobotomy. Mrs. Dully said it was up to her husband, that I would have to talk with him and make it stick.
[Dec. 3, 1960] Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it.
Following the operation, the notebook reads:
I told Howard what I'd done to him...and he took it without a quiver. He sits quietly, grinning most of the time and offering nothing.
Now in his late fifties, Dully works as a bus driver in California. About 40 years after his lobotomy, he discussed the operation with his father for the first time. He discovered that it was his stepmother who had found Dr. Freeman, after being told by other doctors that there was nothing wrong, and that his father had been manipulated by his second wife and Freeman into allowing the operation to be performed.
It was largely because of Freeman that the lobotomy became so popular during the 1940s and '50s. He travelled across the U. S., teaching his technique to groups of psychiatrists who were not qualified to perform surgery. Freeman was very much a showman; he often deliberately tried to shock observers by performing two-handed lobotomies, or by performing the operation in a production line manner. (He once lobotomized 25 women in a single day.) Journalists were often present on his "tours" of hospitals, so that his appearance would end up on the front page of the local newspaper; he was also featured in highly popular publications such as Time and Life. Often, these news stories exaggerated the success of lobotomy in alleviating the symptoms of mental illness.
Consequently, the use of lobotomies became widespread. As well as being used to treat the criminally insane, lobotomies were also used to "cure" political dissidents. It was alleged that the procedure was used routinely on prisoners against their will, and the use of lobotomies was strongly criticised on the grounds that it infringed the civil liberties of the patients.
An excellent account of the effects of lobotomy, and of the ethical implications of the use of the procedure, can be found in Ken Kesey's book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (This was made into a film in 1975, by Milos Forman, who received the Academy Award for Best Director. Jack Nicholson won the award for Best Actor in a Lead Role.)
The use of lobotomies began to decline in the mid- to late-1950s, for several reasons. Firstly, although there had always been critics of the technique, opposition to its use became very fierce. Secondly, and most importantly, phenothiazine-based neuroleptic (anti-psychotic) drugs, such as chlorpromazine, became widely available. These had much the same effect as psychosurgery gone wrong; thus, the surgical method was quickly superseded by the chemical lobotomy.
Comments
Terrific post, Mo. What a lesson.
Posted by: gerald spezio | July 24, 2007 8:38 PM
I find it amazing that blindly damaging an area of the brain was done so freely. I would like to see what percentage of lobotomy patients ended up like Rosemary Kennedy, and an in depth before-and-after of a successful lobotomy patient's personality and cognitive abilities.
Posted by: josh | July 24, 2007 11:11 PM
Its not quite fair to present Freeman as such a crazed maverick. While at the beginning he faced some friction as to his ideas, he largely won over the most respected neurologists of the day. Quite a few doctors adopted his techniques (much to the detriment of patients).
What I mean is, yes, now we can say frontal lobotomies are mutilating, debilitating, dehumanizing. But hindsight is 20-20, so to speak. Surgeries to reduce cranial swelling or bleeding, or tumor removal, etc might well have been termed barbaric with the methodology employed today. Freeman's true mistake was to be so reluctant to give up the lobotomy technique after modern anti-psychotics came about.
Posted by: Shelley | July 25, 2007 12:36 AM
I didn't realize you had included a link to the NPR story until I managed to track it down with google. You might want to make that link a little more obvious. It's interesting to hear Howard Dully talk about things in his own words. (You can listen to the story by clicking on the MP3 after the link.)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080
Posted by: tinyfrog | July 25, 2007 3:19 AM
Fascinating. In most of the standard histories that you hear about these things (well, those I have read anyway), the introduction of Thorazine and the other drugs is depicted as a kind of miracle cure!! Could you go into this a bit more? What was so bad about Thorazine?? And what about many of today's psychiatric drugs? For example, my brother---who is manic depressive and generally takes his meds very assidiously and sucessfully--often talks about Haldol as a "chemical lobotomy" or "zombie" drug that he would never take. Personally, I have serious doubts about the whole "business" (pun intended).
Posted by: Francesco | July 25, 2007 6:09 AM
"He doesn't react to either love or punishment. He objects to going to to bed but then sleeps well. He does a good deal of daydreaming and when asked about it says 'I don't know.' He turns the room's lights on when there is broad daylight outside."
As for this bedtime behaviour, this is typical of my three year old, but I think we will pass on the lobotomy. The rest is pretty typical teenage behaviour. Tragic indeed.
Posted by: Sheldon | July 25, 2007 7:38 AM
One day I was reading about the supporters of the Nazi's sorted by a "professional class" domain in pre-WWII Germany. Lawyers were the least likely to support the Nazi's, about 20% if memory serves me correctly. Doctors, OTOH, were the MOST LIKELY to support the Nazis, at about 80%. I actually found that shocking because, on my own, I would have gone the other way.
The article went on to discuss some of the underlying reasons this may be so. And these underlying reasons made a lot of sense.
So, while I'm not going to get into it; mostly because I don't have the citations and I'm not really that interested in arguing the point, I will say that when I read that these things happen, and that the other doctors just followed right in line (allowing this to be "acceptable medical practice" without saying a damn thing... I'm not surprised.
Not in the slightest.
(And no, I'm not saying Dr.'s are Nazis. Rather that certain factors that attract people to medicine and the way medical training is conducted tend to select for authoritarian/compliant persons, versus law, which tends to attracts non-authoritarian/non-compliant persons.)
Posted by: Moses | July 25, 2007 8:09 AM
The best book on this, to my mind, is Great and Desperate Cures, by Elliot Valenstein, the neuropsychologist. Freeman was a neuropsychiatrist and neuropathologist, and his commitment to psychosurgery left him isolated once treatments changed.
I've seen a few patients, many years post-lobotomy/leucotomy. They have been passive, docile, with little initiation, just as you'd expect from someone with marked frontal lobe injury. As usual in these cases of isolated frontal injuries, reasoning is fine, memory is grossly normal, it's initiation, intention, and conation that's affected.
Posted by: stewart | July 25, 2007 8:50 AM
The data indicating how damaging the procedure was were available for decades before it became popular. Just how obvious does it have to have been before we can consider holding those who performed it responsible?
Posted by: Caledonian | July 25, 2007 9:09 AM
After reading this post all I can say is: I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
Posted by: shyster | July 25, 2007 9:27 AM
I find these last few sentences puzzling:
Specifically, you say chlorpromazine and other early anti-psychotics 'had much the same effect as psychosurgery gone wrong' , but it had previously been my impression that the effects of early anti-psychotics were comparable (in the perception of psychiatrists of the time) to the best outcomes of lobotomies. Could you clarify?Separately, despite Shelley's words, this account of Freeman's work, like others that I have read, makes Freeman seem akin to an enthusiastic practitioner of alternative medicine; the focus on showmanship, and volume of patients, the belief that a treatment worked despite mixed results and lack of any clear theory as to why it should work, and most importantly, continuing to advocate a treatment long after the communities' consensus was that it should be replaced.
Posted by: llewelly | July 25, 2007 9:43 AM
I wonder what medical techniques are currently done that will seem barbaric in 100 years time? Perhaps advanced drug eluting stents will replace bypass surgery. We are already seeing that laproscopy is replacing traditional surgical methods.
Posted by: HPLC_Sean | July 25, 2007 9:48 AM
Shelly, if 20-20 hindsight has its weaknesses (What is good history trying to do); there is much worse - no hindsight.
Are modern anti-psychotics, Zyprexa, Stelazine, etc., significantly similar to an attack with ice picks in a medical setting, especially in terms of her does the administering? "True mistakes" is a new term for me, and it is pregnant with triplets.
Posted by: gerald spezio | July 25, 2007 10:05 AM
I'm sorry Shelley. It is clear from the accounts that Freeman was one very sick motherfucker. Being part of a trend doesn't make it non-evil.
Vigorously resisting going to bed, spacing out, and turning on lots of lights in the house in the middle of the day, despite ongoing contrary efforts on our part, is a regular feature with my 11 yo.
Sick bastard Freeman just wanted to experiment to see if he could use his miracle technique to "cure" a routine case of preadolescent (lively) boyness.
Lots more could be said about the disconnect between self-agrandizement and concern for individual well-being of the patient among those treating percieved mental illness...
Posted by: mirror | July 25, 2007 11:42 AM
I shudder to think there are still people like Shelley around. I pray she is not in a position of power. Maybe I'll renew my ACLU donation.
Posted by: jeff | July 25, 2007 12:29 PM
There is some evidence that people volunteered for the operation, too -- "lined up around the block for it" as a friend of mine put it after a year of research. Among other things, these studies show the dangers of popular opinion.
Listen to the entire radio program Mr. Dully put together. It'll rattle you, if you're sane.
Now ask: What's the 21st century equivalent of the transorbital lobotomy? How would we know?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | July 25, 2007 1:43 PM
Oh good grief, I wasn't defending his methodology, so just relax. I suppose my comment comes from the fact that I'm reading Freeman's biography right now ("The Lobotomist") and the author presents Freeman in a more humanizing light.
Posted by: Shelley | July 25, 2007 2:35 PM
Shelley - it wasn't my intention to portray Freeman as crazy. But he was a maverick, and he was very enthusiastic about the lobotomy. Actually, he was way too over-enthusiastic. Unlike Moniz and Lima, Freeman did not exercize caution. He performed 3,500 lobotomies; that is just reckless.
Stewart - unfortunately, I think Valenstein's biography is now out of print (but here's an interview he gave). The book mentioned by Shelley in the previous comment is by Jack Le-Hai.
llewelly - neuroleptics are VERY HEAVY drugs which basically zombify people. I have a first-hand account of their effects from a very good friend who was prescribed chlorpromazine after a single schizophrenic episode some years ago. He took one and threw them away because he didn't like what they did to him. Fortunately, he hasn't had another episode since. The neuroleptics have also been described as a "chemical straight-jacket".
mirror - watch your language!
Posted by: Mo | July 25, 2007 3:15 PM
"In 1949, he was shot dead by one of his patients (not one who had been lobotomized). "
Are you sure about this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egas_Moniz
"Dr. Moniz was shot in 1939 by a psychiatric patient. He survived and recovered completely[citation needed]. The patient gave vague reasons for the shooting saying he was unsatisfied with the dose of a drug Dr. Moniz had prescribed. Dr. Moniz died in 1955, in Lisbon, Portugal, of natural causes[citation needed]."
Posted by: apy | July 25, 2007 5:30 PM
Sorry...my mistake.
Posted by: Mo | July 25, 2007 5:37 PM
I can't help being reminded of a comment made by a psychologist whom I saw for several years when I lived back East: "There are a lot of sadists in this field".
She was right. The "mental health" industry has historically had a truly ugly tendency to authoritarianism and a love of force and coercion, as well as being full of what the Germans call a "bicyclist"- people who, in the physical manner of a cyclist, nod deferentially at their "superiors" while treading on those below them in the social hierarchy.
Freeman is just another example of how poorly the psychiatric industry does at weeding out the jeebers who aren't fit to hold the position of chief dogcatcher, let alone wield physical power over others.
Posted by: Ktesibios | July 25, 2007 10:10 PM
I heard a segment on NPR about Freeman, several months ago. When they brought Duffy on, to tell his story, it was mindboggling. I actually wept when they had him talk to his dad for the first time, about the lobotomy. I am really looking forward to reading his book.
Posted by: DuWayne | July 25, 2007 10:17 PM
>With the patient rendered unconscious by electroshock, an >instrument was inserted above the eyeball through the orbit >using a hammer.
Electroshock can be used to induce unconsciouness? I thought it's only application was as treatment for mood dysfunction.
Posted by: moonenite | July 26, 2007 12:25 AM
Mo,
Do you know if anyone has studied the historical relationship between phrenology and lobotomy? Was the practice of lobotomy derived from the study of phrenology in say the victorian era?
Fantastic post. This should have been in a science history journal or popular science magazine instead!
Posted by: Kevin Z | July 26, 2007 3:50 PM
I haven't found anything to suggest any relation between the lobotomy and phrenology. But then, that's not what I was looking for.
As far as I can tell, the lobomoty is based on sound neurobiology. The thalamus is like a relay station for information going from structures in the limbic system (which are involved in emotion) to the frontal lobes.
So, in theory at least, severing the thalamo-cortical projections would separate the emotions from intelligence.
Posted by: Mo | July 26, 2007 6:03 PM
And that's precisely what happens - motivation, reaction, and the ability to construct complex behaviors to answer basic desires and needs are all crippled. Everything needed for higher thought, in fact.
Posted by: Caledonian | July 26, 2007 8:32 PM
But it seems like the the next step in the study of phrenology in the 1700s and 1800s might have been to experiment with the bumps on people heads to see if one could manipulate personality (as theorized by phrenologists) and correct for certain personality "disorders" as defined by victorians. I guess I can sort of see a natural evolution, in that respect, towards performing lobotomies.
Posted by: Kevin Z | July 27, 2007 1:02 AM
The famous post war (WW2) actress, Frances Farmer, was brought "under control" in the fifties by severing her fore-brain from the rest of her brain. She was robbed of part of her "mind."
Jessica Lange's magnificent performance in the film, Frances, will give you the heebie jeebies about psycho surgery in modern times as well as psycho anything. Could the masterful psycho surgeon, Freeman, have done the dirty deed on Frances's brain meat?
Posted by: gerald spezio | July 27, 2007 10:00 AM
According to this, it was Freeman who operated on Farmer. But the Wikipedia entry states that this was just a rumour that has now been been proven as false.
Posted by: Mo | July 27, 2007 1:45 PM
Posted by: llewelly | July 27, 2007 8:09 PM
Mo, you are one thorough and precise fellow. Give us more.
I remember so clearly viewing the "This is your life" fiasco with fawning Ralph Whoever. As best I can recall, it was sometime about 1954, and I was in the ninth grade. Remembering it now makes me consider my own brain damage from fifties television. I never even considered that Frances DIDN'T have the alleged lobotomy until today. Much of what we are taught, learn, and come to believe as gospel is, indeed, pure nonsense and falsehood. Sad but true. Grazi.
Posted by: gerald spezio | July 28, 2007 12:35 PM
I just squandered more brain cells trying to decipher the actual date of my youthful dose of fifties tv flap and foo-foo. It appears that I must have viewed the Frances episode on the "This is your life" schmaltz show in 1958. Frances supposedly knew of her appearance on the tv show beforehand, and like most else, it was an engineered peeyar stunt to re-invigorate her career. Ralph Smooth and Saccharine, the host, was more foul than smooth. It is very powerful to recall my experiences here, because of all the flap and falsehood.
Posted by: gerald spezio | July 28, 2007 1:00 PM
Frances Farmer was *not* lobotomized
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5059
Posted by: Alan | July 30, 2007 11:30 PM
It is quite frightening to read about how blindly these types of things were both done and accepted by the world.
Chemical treatments might be a step up from poking around at the frontal lobe of your brain, however, having a relative that's undergone a lot of chemical treatments in order to fix his mental state, I know that even that can be just as blind and dangerous as physically cutting into the brain itself.
Posted by: Travis | July 31, 2007 1:09 AM
"he often deliberately tried to shock observers by performing two-handed lobotomies, or by performing the operation in a production line manner. (He once lobotomized 25 women in a single day.)"
I wonder what percentage of his patients overall were female? This is just so frightening to contemplate. If you were an outspoken, independent woman who was recovering from abuse and had depressive symptoms someone could simply neuter your personality for you? Yech. I wonder how many "uppity" women he rendered docile and obedient. Sickening.
Posted by: SK | July 31, 2007 2:02 AM
The "nice" thing about lobotomy and electroshock is that they left no tell-tale marks. Somehow it became okay to murder a mind, so long as the basic functions remained. Eventually both were used to punish "incorrect" social behavior.
Such attitudes towards the welfare of *others* -- the good doctors never needing this kind of treatment -- made possible experiments like Mengeles, the atomic veterans, the irradation of patients, giving syphilis to patients, etc. Even the gassing of millions became thinkable.
Hard to fathom now. But that wasn't so long ago. Hopefully we can keep those tides of fashion from rising again.
Posted by: TJ | July 31, 2007 2:30 AM
I'm a little disturbed by the anti-psychiatry misinformation that's being allowed to sit unchallenged on this page. Lobotomy is certainly barbaric by today's standards, but the incentive to perform the operation is understandable to anyone who's actually seen a few severely psychotic patients. How many of you have actually seen them? Most likely very few, if any, of you because society makes significant efforts to shield laypeople from it. The psychiatrists of Freeman's era did what they could with the crude tools at their disposal, and it wasn't very much.
The statements made by several of you that neuroleptic drugs are "chemical straitjackets", "zombify" people, or are equivalent to lobotomy are simply factually incorrect. Mo--your friend's experience is hardly fair, since taking the first few doses of antipsychotics (especially the older ones, like chlorpromazine) is associated with nasty side effects, but those largely go away after a few doses. If we're getting into anecdotes here, I have a friend who went psychotic during graduate school and was locked up for her own protection at an inpatient psych unit. She was put on antipsychotics, and now she's finishing her second doctorate from an ivy league institution. The same thing happened to another friend of mine, and she was also put on antipsychotics (with some nasty side effects), and now she's finished her masters and has a high-paying job in industry.
A good analogy is cancer chemotherapy. Chemo is brutal, but most sensible people understand that it's necessary because of how serious a disease cancer is. Well, serious psychotic illness (which most of you have never seen up close, and likely never will) is every bit as bad, and it's much more common than most people think. Antipsychotic drugs are far from perfect, but they are absolutely necessary, and they make a huge difference in people's lives.
Posted by: luke | July 31, 2007 1:41 PM
I'd heard (as an undergrad, from my physiological psychology professor) that Freeman would carry the icepick instruments in a leather doctor's bag. And he drove a station wagon, nicknamed the "Loboto-Mobile."
Posted by: Chuck | August 1, 2007 1:31 PM
Yeah...I read about Freeman's loboto-mobile the other day.
"Step right up...it's the lobotomy road show!"
Posted by: Mo | August 1, 2007 2:02 PM
Thanks for listening, BTW my book "My Lobotomy" will be out September 4th 2007 and it goes a lot deeper than the 22 minutes that was allowed for the radio documentary.
Posted by: Howard Dully | September 1, 2007 4:14 AM
I was researching lobotomies for a project I am working on and came across this interesting article. My grandmother received a frontal lobotomy in about the mid-1950's in England. She would have been in her 50's at the time. She had been suffering from anxiety and some depression (her husband had been killed by a drunk driver a couple of years prior). Lobotomies were already quite controversial by that time, and my mother and her sister (who were only in their early 20s at the time) were under considerable pressure to authorize the procedure, which they did. After the lobotomy my grandmother's anxiety had subsided but her personality had flat-lined. Apparently she had no emotional reactions at all, she had no interest in anything, and she spoke in an extremely monotone voice. Her attention span was also very short after the procedure. I don't know if that's typical. She died a few years after the lobotomy, from another cause. I know my mother felt tremendous guilt later about the decision she had made; I'm not sure if she ever came to terms with it.
Posted by: Michelle | September 10, 2007 3:00 AM
http://www.cchr.org/index/5276/6608/6631/
Posted by: roger | April 7, 2008 3:03 PM