Psychosurgery Psychosurgery is brain surgery with the aim of changing an individuals behaviour or psychological function. Historically, this was achieved by removing of lesioning a section of the brain in ablative psychosurgery but more recently deep brain stimulation is used to remotely stimulate sections of the brain. One such practice was the lobotomy, that was used between the 1930s and 1950s, for which one its creators, António Egas Moniz, received a Nobel Prize in 1949. The lobotomy fell out of favour in by 1960s and 1970s. Other forms of ablative psychosurgery were in use in the UK in the late 1970s, to treat psychotic and mood disorders. Bilateral cingulotomy was used to treat substance abuse disorder in Russia until 2002. Deep brain stimulation is used in China to treat substance abuse disorders. In the US, the lobotomy, while initially received with positivity in the late 1930s, came to be seen more negative in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The New York Times discussed the personality changes of lobotomy in 1947, and in the same year the Science Digest reported on papers questioning the effects of lobotomy on personality and intelligence. The lobotomy was prominently depicted a means to control nonconformity in the 1962 book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Psychosurgery was criticized in the US in the late 1960s and 1970s by<unk> st Peter Breggin. He identified all psychosurgery with the lobotomy as a rhetorical device. He stated that "psychosurgery is a crime against humanity, a crime that cannot be condoned on medical, ethical, or legal grounds". Psychosurgeons William Beecher Scoville and Petter Lindström said that Breggin's critique was emotional and not based on facts. Psychosurgery was investigated by the US Senate in the 1973 by the Health Subcommittee of the Senate's Committee on Labor and Public Welfare chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy due to growing concern about the ethical boundaries of science and medicine. At this committee Breggin argued that newer forms of psychosurgery were the same as the lobotomy since it had the same effects "emotional blunting, passivity, reduced capacity to learn" and said that psychosurgeons "represent the greatest future threat that we are going to face for our traditional American values", arguing that if the US became a totalitarian regime lobotomy and psychosurgery would be the equivalent of the secret police. The subcommittee published a report in 1977 suggesting that data should be carefully collected about psychosurgery and that it should not be performed upon children or prisoners. Electroconvulsive therapy Electroconvulsive therapy is a therapy method which was used widely between the 1930s and 1960s and is, in a modified form, still in use today, and was one treatment that the anti-psychiatry movement wanted eliminated. Their arguments were that ECT damages the brain, and was used as punishment or as a threat to keep the patients "in line". Since then, ECT has improved considerably, and is performed under general anesthesia in a medically supervised environment. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends ECT for the short-term treatment of severe, treatment-resistant depression, and advises against its use in schizophrenia. According to the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments, ECT is more efficacious for the treatment of depression than antidepressants, with a response rate of 90% in first line treatment and 50-60% in treatment-resistant patients. The most common side effects include headache, muscle soreness, confusion, and temporary loss of recent memory.
Controversies about psychiatry
Sex differences in psychology
Somatic experiencing
Causes of mental disorders
Self-hatred
Biopsychiatry controversy
Ethical issues in psychiatry
Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy