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When I was somewhere between 15 to 17 yrs old, we had a family friend who got a lobotomy. Being young, I was not privy to his psychiatric diagnosis. But what I remember, at the time, he suffered from traumatic, painful memories that effected his and his family's life.
He was a nice man. His wife was nice as well, and they had 2 young children, that I babysat sometimes.
I remember visiting him at the hospital after the lobotomy, along with my parents, and maybe my other siblings...I don't remember for sure. He seemed normal to me. I didn't notice anything 'different' in a negative sense.
Like I said, the family were friends of ours, so that wasn't the only time we were around each other. He seemed fine all the times we were all together.
I worked in a state psychiatric hospital in the '70's.
There were quite a few women with lobotomies. A number of them were former mistresses of wealthy men.
From what I could tell, it was likely they had bipolar disorder. They were a lot of fun until they got into their thirties and their manic episodes became burdensome. Then it was off for a lobotomy.
As I recall, they were compliant, flat affect, ... They told stories that at first I thought were delusional until I read their charts.
You don't think this was perhaps pushed by the wealthy man so that they would not recollect the events and be unable to "spill the beans"?
You don't think this was perhaps pushed by the wealthy man so that they would not recollect the events and be unable to "spill the beans"?
I can see it being both - as with Rose Kennedy, who by all accounts was just a fun, spunky girl with modest intelligence who might have "embarrassed the family."
But it does presuppose that mistresses would be a certain peronality/mentality type, and early stages of bipolar disorder would have the right combination of factors.
I can see it being both - as with Rose Kennedy, who by all accounts was just a fun, spunky girl with modest intelligence who might have "embarrassed the family."
I think you mean Rosemary Kennedy. Rose Kennedy was her mother.
And Rosemary was more than a fun, spunky girl. She suffered from convulsions and violent mood swings. She was diagnosed by a doctor as mentally retarded. She certainly was an embarrassment to the family, but Joseph Kennedy believed he was doing something that would be beneficial to Rosemary, it wasn't just erase her brain and keep her hidden
I think you mean Rosemary Kennedy. Rose Kennedy was her mother.
And Rosemary was more than a fun, spunky girl. She suffered from convulsions and violent mood swings. She was diagnosed by a doctor as mentally retarded. She certainly was an embarrassment to the family, but Joseph Kennedy believed he was doing something that would be beneficial to Rosemary, it wasn't just erase her brain and keep her hidden
Rosemary, yes. Oops.
There are varying interpretations of her condition. A good case is made that she simply wasn't good enough for Joe Sr, so he had her... removed. They certainly had the money and wherewithal to keep her in a family situation, but the chance she might get out and embarrass the family standing was too great for him.
AFAIK, Rose never forgave him for it. That says a great deal.
To the more general topic, I think a lot of such difficult but not completely unmanageable people were lobotomized for exactly those reasons - to make them more tractable and easier to store.
Psychiatry has a history of torturing people to help them; Ice baths, insulin coma therapy Metrazol Therapy and ECT. They still turn people into zombies with Thorazine.
People with Multiple Sclerosis swore by ice baths. In fact, they're still recommended at an MS center in the Bay Area set up by Henry Kaiser Jr., who had MS. What would you prefer; pharmaceuticals with side effects? Why not let the patients decide which they prefer?
Obviously, thank god they're not a thing anymore, but at the time where it were a thing do you think most of those that performed it honestly, and genuinely thought they were doing good, or do you think most were just very sadistic? I get medical care was different back then, but to me, no one with a conscious at all could have ever thought sticking an ice pick into someone's brain would in anyway be beneficial.
I recall my mother ( Sick Children's Grad from the '30's) talking to me about this before I went into training. During my Nurses training I, inquired about what treatments during Psychiatry Training I was experiencing ( late '60's) Shock (ECT) therapy as "Insulin Shock Therapy became less common.
The above link goes thru the history of such now considered not successful much as the outcomes proved to be MORE HARMFUL than "Affective" to help.
Then I actually learned thru experience working in Neurosurgery ICU's and about the advances of Pharmaceuticals how archaic these past procedures really were!!
Let's face it, the brain's functions have always been an unknown.. much much research given the advent of such diagnostics of CT Scans/MRI's and use of contrast mediums that exposed certain area's of the brain.
As t0 the question by OP.. NO, it wasn't "Sadism" at all ..but the desire to help those people with some mental aberrancy's NOT understood at the time. Causes unknown, assumptions that the behaviour was coming from brain function etc etc since they had zero diagnostics available at the time except observations of behaviours. Even then, they used a simplified viewpoint available at the time to diagnose ( guessing) to try something for desperate folks!!
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Originally Posted by Therblig
Well, about ten thousand reasons, really. Medicine is perhaps a bit too complicated for democratic options.
Those responsible probably had good intentions, as they were looking to cure some very disturbed people and conditions in psychiatric hospitals were often appalling, and the lobotomy was initially seen as a cure which offered hope of release from these institutions.
However not enough was really known about a lot of psycho-surgery to warrant such invasive medical procedures, and not enough medical research in to all the effects had been carried out. Even today the brain is still seen as very complex and not everything is fully understood.
So it was wrong to carry out such surgery however it was not usually done for 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' type sadistic reasons.
Over the decades the use of psycho-surgery declined significantly until by the 1980s the number of psycho-surgical operations carried out annually in the United Kingdom had fallen to fewer than 70, with most being stereotactic subcaudate tractotomies performed at the Geoffrey Knight psycho-surgical unit at the Brook Hospital, London.
By 1983 the law changed and the Mental Health Act 1983 (which covers England and Wales) classified psycho-surgery as a treatment that could only be carried out with a patient's consent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BBC News
From the early 1940s, it began to be seen as a miracle cure here in the UK, where surgeons performed proportionately more lobotomies than even in the US.
Despite opposition from some doctors - especially psychoanalysts - it became a mainstream part of psychiatry with more than 1,000 operations a year in the UK at its peak. It was used to treat a range of illnesses, from schizophrenia to depression and compulsive disorders.
The reason for its popularity was simple - the alternative was worse.
"When I visited mental hospitals… you saw straitjackets, padded cells, and it was patently apparent that some of the patients were, I'm sorry to say, subjected to physical violence," recalls retired neurosurgeon Jason Brice.
The chance of a cure through lobotomy seemed preferable to the life sentence of incarceration in an institution.
"We hoped it would offer a way out," says Mr Brice. "We hoped it would help."
There were centres for lobotomy across the UK, in Dundee, North Wales and Bristol. But by far the most prolific lobotomist in the country, and indeed the world, was the neurosurgeon Sir Wylie McKissock, based at the Atkinson Morley hospital in Wimbledon.
"He was one of the great men of medicine of the 20th Century," says Terry Gould, who worked as McKissock's anaesthetist.
Those responsible probably had good intentions, as they were looking to cure some very disturbed people and conditions in psychiatric hospitals were often appalling, and the lobotomy was initially seen as a cure which offered hope of release from these institutions.
However not enough was really known about a lot of psycho-surgery to warrant such invasive medical procedures, and not enough medical research in to all the effects had been carried out. Even today the brain is still seen as very complex and not everything is fully understood.
So it was wrong to carry out such surgery however it was not usually done for 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' type sadistic reasons.
Over the decades the use of psycho-surgery declined significantly until by the 1980s the number of psycho-surgical operations carried out annually in the United Kingdom had fallen to fewer than 70, with most being stereotactic subcaudate tractotomies performed at the Geoffrey Knight psycho-surgical unit at the Brook Hospital, London.
By 1983 the law changed and the Mental Health Act 1983 (which covers England and Wales) classified psycho-surgery as a treatment that could only be carried out with a patient's consent.
Not really sure of the definition of Invasive is used here but Dr Walter Freeman "perfected" the trans-orbital lobotomy ( icepik)and Between 1940 and 1944, 684 lobotomies were performed in the United States. However, because of the fervent promotion of the technique by Freeman and Watts, those numbers increased sharply towards the end of the decade. In 1949, the peak year for lobotomies in the US, 5,074 procedures were undertaken, and by 1951 over 18,608 individuals had been lobotomized in the US.[139] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loboto...bital_lobotomy
There is quite a good documentary regarding the subject....
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