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Cutting Out Worry: Popularizing Psychosurgery In America, Antonietta Louise Iannaccone

Scripps Senior Theses

We think of the lobotomy as utterly primitive and brutal; we shudder at the idea of it. The archetypal image of creepiness, violence, and unnecessary brutality was expressed in the book and movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This procedure weighs heavy on America’s conscience but in 1945 the procedure was characterized as being as gentle as ‘cutting through butter’ and the therapeutic effect was described as ‘cutting out worry’. How did the lobotomy gain such widespread acceptance? One part of the answer is that Walter Freeman advocated for it not just among his colleagues, but through the popular …