Bourke, Joanna (2002) Lobotomomizzare le paure degli americani: la cura radicale per gli stati gravi di ansia, 1930-1980. Revista Internazionale di Studi Nordamericani 23 , pp. 10-21.
Abstract
This essay relates the historical and scientific development of psychosurgery in America from the 1940s to its decline in the 1970s. It describes in detail the procedures and effects of lobotomy, perpetrated on patients treated for chronic fear, in the name of freedom from anxiety and fear. For psychosurgeons even passivity and a more superficial or shallow affective life, a “surgically-induced childhood”, was better than experiencing fear. Ethical issues in American psychiatry and some literature of the counter-culture of the 60s, questioned the legitimacy of such practice and alternative forms of treatment, such as psychoactive drugs and psychotherapy, became the new solutions for a disorder which still is central to the American psyche.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR) |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Dec 2016 17:05 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:29 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/17580 |
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