Walter Freeman

From Psy3242

Summary

Walter Jackson Freeman (1875-1972) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a neurologist and psychologist infamous for promoting the carrying out of transorbital lobotomies on mentally ill people in the United States during the 1950's and 1960's. He himself performed over 2,800 lobotomies. A lobotomy is an operation in which part of a person�s brain is entirely removed in order to lessen the psychological symptoms of schizophrenia, intractable depression, severe anxiety, and obsessions. The lobotomy was a controversial surgery as Freeman and supporters viewed it as solving a mental health care crisis and others labeled it as inhumane due to the side affects on personality patients suffered. The lobotomy as a treatment procedure was virtually discontinued with the advent of drug therapy. While he is often independently credited with the introduction of psychosurgery in the United States and with the invention of the lobotomy, neither of these suppositions are factual as he was initially partners with the neurosurgeon James Watts and the suregy was pioneered by Egas Moniz.

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