Another "The Lobotomist" review

I don't really like the "lesson" people seem to be taking from El-Hai's book. The idea that lobotmy "cured" anyone is a load, and it's dangerous too. This paragraph from a review is totally and completely false:

"In the days before anti-depressants, lobotomy was often the last hope for those suffering from severe depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders and even schizophrenia. Writer El-Hai, who had unprecedented access to Freeman's papers, shows how the gory procedure actually rendered some patients free of their anxieties and compulsions."

First of all lobotomy cured mental illness like the guillotine cured dandruff. It's technically true and that's about it.

Second, there were plenty of 'treatments' back then. There were electro-shock treatments, a "therapy" which is still used and vigorously defended by psychiatry to this day. There was insulin shock. There was metrozol shock too. There was talk therapy. There was hydrotherapy. This idea that they were sitting around without a treatment in sight is a myth.

Unfortunately I am very busy getting ready for the Graduate Record Exam which I will be taking in just over a week. When I am done I will finish and post the long-awaited review of "The Lobtomist".