Lobotomy Research Paper

Neurologist Antonio Damasio has written significantly on Gage and other patients that he studied on with similar injuries. Damasio viewed Gage's case as playing a crucial role in the history of neuroscience, and stated that Gage's story "was the historical beginnings of the study of the biological basis of behavior". Gage's case inspired the development of frontal lobotomy, which now is a psychosurgical procedure that leads to emotional response and personality traits. On the other hand, historical analysis doesn't support this claim because Gage's injury didn't have enough influence on the development of this practice.

In early American history, individuals with mental illnesses have been neglected and suffered inhuman treatments. Some were beaten, lobotomized, sterilized, restrained, in addition to other kinds of abuse. Mental illness was thought to be the cause of supernatural dreadful curse from the Gods or a demonic possession. Trepanning (the opening of the skull) is the earliest known treatment for individuals with mental illness. This practice was believed to release evil spirits (Kemp, 2007). Laws were passed giving power to take custody over the mentally ill including selling their possessions and properties and be imprisoned (Kofman, 2012). The first psychiatric hospital in the U.S. was the Pennsylvania Hospital where mentally ill patients were left in cold basements because they were considered not affected by cold or hot environments and restraint with iron shackles. They were put on display like zoo animals to the public for sell by the doctors (Kofmen, 2012). These individuals were punished and isolated and kept far out of the eyes of society, hidden as if they did not exist. They were either maintained by living with their families and considered a source of embarrassment or institutionalized

Hippocrates was the first to recognize that mental illness was due to ‘disturbed physiology’ as opposed to ‘displeasure of the gods or evidence of demonic possession’. It was not until about one thousand years later that the first place designated for the mentally ill came to be in 15th century Spain. Before the 15th century, it was largely up to individual’s families to care for them. By the 17th century, society was ‘often housing them with handicapped people, vagrants, and delinquents. Those considered insane are increasingly treated inhumanely, often chained to walls and kept in dungeons’. There are great strides for the medical treatments for the mentally

Experiments with psychiatric diagnosis these are considered experiments that people sometimes volunteer or sometimes they have an illness and they have to take medication in order to find out what is going on. They might be given strong medication so they see how they react or they want to see what happens in their heads. Sometimes they hook them up into machines and take a look at their brains to see how the medication is working. When this process is done, they go and they see what is wrong. Sometimes their brain shows where the damage is done. I have gone to see someone when they are doing this to their brain and well the picture is not that nice. You could see the brain and where the damage is done the brains are moving. It

The treatment of mental illness has gone through many reforms over the years. Stemming from some of the earliest documented cases of treatment such as trephination in 5000 B.C. to the opening of “mental” asylums starting in the late 1300s to the development of the modern healthcare system. Through the 1800s until now, major developments in mental health treatment include the evolution of the “mental” asylum, widespread psychopharmacology, and psychotherapy treatments. Primarily focusing on the treatment methods of the past two hundred or so years, the United States of America has made leaps and bounds to provide humane treatment to aid those in need.

brain, or sending patients to institutions, doctor prescribed pills to try and treat mental conditions. In addition mental health patients were no longer being institutionalized due to the poor conditions in mental institutions (History of Mental Illness”)

The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus

The deinstitutionalisation of the severely mentally ill in the 60ties qualifies a as one of the largest social experiments in American history. In 1995, there were 558,239 severely mentally ill patients in the nations public psychiatric

The fact that a lobotomy would alter a person so drastically and often cripple them in some way for the rest of their lives just to have a reprieve from their illnesses doesn’t seem worth it. A specific example of this was the lobotomy of Beulah Jones in 1952. Before receiving a lobotomy Jones had persistent delusions, but was an intelligent woman. After her lobotomy she lost her higher intellect, her expressions became placid, and the delusions

During the early to mid 20th century, not much was known about mental illnesses or what caused them, which was the way it had been for many years before. One of the somewhat common perceptions about mental illness was that these disorders were caused by possession or negative spirits. This can be most likely be attributed to the wide influence of the catholic church and the belief that exorcisms or psychosurgery could possibly cure incurable or intractable mental illnesses. Psychosurgery developed into the more common procedure known as a lobotomy, where the connections between the prefrontal lobe and the prefrontal cortex are cut with the intention of freeing the patient from delusions and side effects of other mental illnesses. Lobotomies began as a surgical procedure which needed to be performed in an operating room, as it required holes to be drilled through the scalp and into the skull. This meant that though the procedure was seen to show some

This one swung the mentally ill person around while he/she was in a harness. This treatment supposedly ‘calmed the nerves’.” (Gray). Needless to say the treatment of the insane was horrid and unbelievable. In the eighteenth century at Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, the public could pay a penny for a privilege to watch the “freaks”; they could poke the caged patients with a long stick (Taylor).

Around the 1930-1940’s a psychiatrist named Walter Freeman discovered a supposed miracle technique to help people with severe mental emotional health conditions become cured within ten minutes. To the public eye this seemed like a great idea that could solve all of their problems, but this involved poking a small metal ice pick like object into the corner/orbit of a person’s eye often resulting in unwanted mental damage. But this was not revealed to the public, they were told that it was safe and that it would cure people with severe emotional conditions. One of the few people worked on during freeman’s tests was a boy named Howard dully. Howard dully received a trans orbital lobotomy from freeman at age twelve due to pressure from Howard’s stepmother (Lou dully).

The two psychological interventions that were administered to McMurphy while in the mental institution were a lobotomy and shock therapy. A lobotomy is the removal of the portion from the frontal lobe of the brain. This procedure’s main goal is to eliminate aggressive or violent behavior. This invention took place in 1935 by Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz. However, by the late 1940s the realization those individuals undergoing lobotomy procedures took place without initiative became apparent. Although the methods of a lobotomy have changed the basic underlying idea of neurosurgery exists today in the form of “psychosurgery” (Encarta 2000). Shock Therapy uses electric current or drugs to control psychotic disorders. In 1933, Dr. Manfred Sakel used drugs and instituted insulin shock to control mainly Schizophrenia. In 1938, Drs. U. Cerletti and L. Bini used electroshock therapy to treat severe depression (i.e. manic depressive psychoses). Alternating current through the brain using parallel

“Phlebotomy has been dated back thousands of years and has been linked to many ancient cultures. Back then phlebotomy was called bloodletting. Bloodletting was where a doctor would cut certain areas of a patient’s body and let the blood drain until the patient fainted. The initial goal to this treatment was to try and cure the patient of the plague, leprosy, stroke, inflammation and many more. After failed attempts and many fatalities, bloodletting was banned in the late 19th century” (Bloodletting Is Back). But it was brought back in the 20th century to present day. Now imagine that you have suddenly become ill on a family vacation and end up in the doctor’s office. The doctor has ordered some tests to be done in the lab. There you will be associated with a Phlebotomist. What is a phlebotomist you may ask? Well, “a phlebotomist is a

Psychosurgery, since its introduction, has been a controversial topic because of its approach to treating patients with extreme personality and behavior disorder, as well other mental illness by severing, or otherwise disabling areas of the brain (Psychology 1). More radical and extreme procedures such as trepanning, or “trephining”during the Neolithic era, similar to psychosurgery therapy, focused on treating epileptic seizures, migraines, mental disorders and spiritual conflicts. Although, trepanning procedures were widely used between 5000 - 6500 B.C., modern psychosurgery as most know it, is accredited to Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt beginning in the 1880’s.