[Restorer]

To be perfectly fair, lobotomy was quite popular in the US from the 30s through the 50s, to treat a wide variety of mental health problems. There is considerable evidence that it may actually have been quite effective in many cases. Its decline in popularity is due at least as much to the development of alternatives such as medication as it is to discovery of bad effects.

Most people's opinion of it is based on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and other highly unscientific depictions in the media. There are believed to be somewhere around 50,000 Americans still around who were lobotomized. Many of them have lived quite normal and successful lives, although we will of course never know exactly what their lives would have been like without the surgery.

[Tevin]

i've also heard that lobotomies are the only way to completely cure OCD and that they're becoming more widely used in extreme OCD cases.

If I recall correctly, the doctor who advised Kennedy to lobotomize his daughter was one of the most prominent neurosurgeons in the country.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I think lobotomies should be revived. They'd be an excellent way to deal with sexual predators. Castration-lobotomy combo would do the trick reliably, while leaving most of the perps sufficiently functional to hold down simple jobs so their continued existence wouldn't be on the taxpayers' dime.

[Kimmers]

I agree with you....We have come so far in our treatment of the special needs population....in todays world she probably would have thrived.... RIP...she is now whole and complete in heaven....

[101st-Eagle]

Most people's opinion of it is based on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and other highly unscientific depictions in the media. There are believed to be somewhere around 50,000 Americans still around who were lobotomized. Many of them have lived quite normal and successful lives, although we will of course never know exactly what their lives would have been like without the surgery.

Here's another movie to get a taste/distaste of it: Frances, the Frances Farmer story.

[miss marmelstein]

Are you sure you have not mixed up lobotomies with electric shock treatments?

[oldironsides]

Normal? I don't think so. Taunton State Hospital had many of the lobotomies living there under 24 hour watch. There was little in the way of drugs to control behavior. The wealthy took the same way out as the Kennedy's. Kennedy had the funds to keep Rosemary in a private place. Many just shuttled them into the state system. The cruelty of it all was very apparent back then and there was not one of us that could tell you it ever made a person function better.
Not one of them could function out in real life. They were far worse after the cruel and inhumane surgery.