SCS 100 Project 3: Final Reflection

Discussion

The event in social science that interests me the most is Walter Freeman performing the first frontal lobe lobotomy in the United States. The reason that I find it so interesting is because Freeman himself was an interesting character. I heard a bit of his story in a podcast called 'Lore' which was also created into a TV series last year. He performed many lobotomies on people while thinking that he was helping them and making a positive difference. The reality was that he was leaving many people in worse off shape than they were in previously and in some cases severely disabled.  

The lobotomy was another step in learning about what worked and what didn't when treating those with mental illness. With more research being done there was a change done in how mentally ill patients were being treated. More improved care being provided as well as follow up research caused the practice of lobotomies to fall out of favor. Some countries have banned lobotomies altogether while others they are still performed on a very limited basis. 

Lobotomies performed by Walter Freeman was extremely helpful in finding the treatment for mental illness. At the time when Freeman was performing the lobotomies he felt as if what he was doing was actually the treatment but soon discovered was doing more harm than good. Even though the procedure of the lobotomy did a lot of harm to patients it still helped develop the current treatment for mental illness. The first lobotomy performed by Freeman was in 1936 this lobotomy was 15 years before the first anti-depressant drug was invented. This shows without the failure of the lobotomy it's possible that it would have taken longer to for the development of mental illness treatment would have been delayed significantly. 

It displays that without trial and error we often will not find or develop cures. Although his initial surgeries caused more harm that help it was his plight in finding answers that lead to the advancements in medicine for mental health. Thank you for sharing your post this week. I found an article that discusses his methods and reasoning of performing these surgeries. I found it interesting that the method was used to cut out the sickness.

Resources:

http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/history/history_nonflash.html

http://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes/6

https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-surprising-history-of-the-lobotomy/