The Lobotomist (TV) [2008] PBS

http://bayimg.com/gALCCAADN

The American Experience

The Lobotomist


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178694/

Original Air Date:21 January 2008

The Lobotomist is a story of the talented psychosurgeon Walter Freeman and his unfortunate patients. Freeman devoted his life to the promotion of the lobotomy - the operation technique notoriously praised by the Nobel Committee and later cursed by both medical profession and the victims' relatives.

This movie presents a balanced story, telling first of the dire circumstances of the health system that prompted psychiatrists to seek drastic measures. This was the time before the advent of anti-psychotics, with overcrowded, prison-like mental hospitals, and lobotomy was looked at as a risky but plausible chance to eradicate the nastiest symptoms. Freeman gained some fame and strove to extent the scope of operations.

But even after the pharmaceutical treatments were found, Freeman carried on with his barbaric procedure, with many patients deteriorating far beyond their initial state and many operated on without any proper reason. Why wasn't he stopped? The reasons are presented in the movie, making it a caution for all of us.

Unique historical footage and interviews of former patients, their relatives and people who knew Freeman and worked with him, all mixed with interesting facts, make for an excellent documentary.

This groundbreaking new biography takes readers into one of the darkest chapters of American medicine ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Before the introduction of effective psychiatric medication in the 1950s, patients often had no choice other than to accept confinement in crowded and horrific asylums, or to submit to dangerous ΓΓé¼┼ôshockΓΓé¼┬¥ therapies.

Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, a neurologist and psychiatrist who believed he saw a way out of this quagmire. At a time when Freudian psychoanalysis and other ΓΓé¼┼ôtalkΓΓé¼┬¥ therapies were growing ascendant, he advocated a completely different type of treatment ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. In partnership with neurosurgeon James Watts, Freeman adopted the surgical technique of a little known Portuguese physician, rechristened it lobotomy , and began performing the operation in the United States. In time, he transformed lobotomy into a controversial outpatient procedure, traveled the world performing psychosurgeries, and devoted his life to tracking the recovery of his patients. Meanwhile, his personal life collapsed around him.

As gripping as a medical thriller, The Lobotomist examines the motivations of a man whose personality combined brilliance with arrogance, compassion with egotism, and determination with stubbornness. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a physician who permanently shaped the lives of his patients, as well as the course of medical history