Psychosurgery

Larry Gostin addresses the many unethical justifications doctors have so they can continue to perform lobotomies on mental patients. Gostin discredits psychosurgery (surgical treatment for the chronically ill) as an efficient procedure that helps patients. He addresses the risks patients go through as a result of the way of practice of lobotomy is run. With continuous modifications to the procedure, there is no definite way of performing a lobotomy, leaving lobotomy to be more prone to mistakes, and the mistake of adopting lobotomy surgeries and performing them when little was known about the brain in the 1940 's. Gostin 's article confronts the medical community for using lobotomy procedures, "where many holes lie in the foundation of the surgery and the practice of it "(149). This article will be helpful for my literary review because although it addresses all the negative points surrounding lobotomy…

Although psychosurgery had multiple negative implications, the procedure was still progressing. In the late 1940s, noninvasive procedures were beginning to advance in neurosurgical devices. The confined lesion allowed for manageable side effects and less fatalities. Additionally, there was an increased advancements in neurobiological research on emotion, allowing for focus on distinct areas of the brain. Papez and later MacLean led to clarifying evidence of appropriate ranges to operate on that…

Reviewing the article titled A Brief History of the Lobotomy by Dr. C. George Boeree, gave much insight into the gruesome history of lobotomy. As many know, lobotomy is a neurosurgical procedure in which nerve pathways in a lobe or lobes of the brain are severed from other areas in order to terminate contact and improve ones mental health condition. This theory developed in 1890 when a German researcher, Friederich Golz, removed portions of his dogs’ temporal lobes and noticed a change in…

It is hard to imagine seeing a hand with a hole right in the middle of it. The pain of a huge metal hole puncher coming down incredibly fast onto one’s hand and crushing it, and the thought that someone could never use their hand again, is unimaginable. However, it was possible for Jonah Brown because that is the sight, pain, and thought that he experienced. Jonah Brown is eighteen years old and lives in the country just outside of Edgerton, Ohio. He graduated high school last year and worked at…

The Curious Case of Phineas Gage Phineas Gage is among one of the earliest known survivors of a major brain injury. Gage’s brain was severely injured upon working on a railroad near the town of Cavendish, Vermont. With the occurrence of the injury, Gage should have experienced not only major bodily damage, but also severe mental complications. After the incident, Gage barely escaped death, struggling to survive with a large hole in his head. This wasn’t the only issue observed with Gage after…

The investigation continues as Teddy and his partner Chuck search for Rachael Solando, the mental patient who has disappeared on the island. The storm outside is progressively becoming worse which means they will need to move fast if they want to find the patient in time. While Teddy is questioning Dr. Cawley about the treatments Rachael was receiving, he responds by asking, “Do you know the state of the mental health field these days, gentlemen?... War. The old school believes in surgical…

The study of psychosurgery was revived in the early 1930s by Antonio Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist. Also by Almeida Lima his neurosurgical colleague. Monez and Lima started to experiment with the connections between the thalamus, and frontal cortices. While experimenting they reintroduced certain principles from Burckhardt’s research. With this, they developed a specific process called leucotomy. A leucotomy involves a small rod that has a wire loop on one end, to be inserted into the…

The definition of Psychosurgery is “Psychosurgery involves severing or otherwise disabling areas of the brain to treat a personality disorder, behavior disorder, or other mental illness. Modern psychosurgical techniques target the pathways between the limbic system (the portion of the brain on the inner edge of the cerebral cortex) that is believed to regulate emotions, and the frontal cortex, where thought processes are seated. Psychosurgery is a general name for any surgery that is performed…

In the Middle Ages, they could only justify abnormal behavior as being possessed by a demon or the devil, currently it's often blamed on mental illness. The thought of mental illness has changed through these numerous years. "People who go to therapy are crazy, I'm not crazy!" is a sentence many people in the United States voice. Sadly, they aren't aware how much therapy can positively impact someone's life, and how many methods of therapy have been created over the years. Some of the most known…

Insight therapies are approaches to psychotherapy based on the notion that psychological we'll-being depends on self-understanding. Psychodynamic therapies are psychotherapies that attempt to uncover repressed childhood experiences that are thought to cause the patient's current problems. Psychoanalysis is a technique developed by Freud. Transference is an emotional reaction that occurs during the psychoanalysis, in which the patient displays feelings and attitudes toward the analyst that were…