"My Lobotomy": Howard Dully's Journey

In the context of my course on representations of mental illness, questions often come up about various medical procedures that were once used to treat psychiatric patients. During our discussion of Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, students were appalled by the institution's use of shock therapy and transorbital lobotomy. They asked many questions about both procedures and were amazed to learn that some doctors still use electro convulsive therapy--otherwise known as ECT--and that more than 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the United States between 1949 and 1952. In answering some of their questions, I directed them to a recent series of NPR stories about lobotomies, the most interesting of which includes oral histories from lobotomy survivors. Though current methods of treating mental illness might not be ideal, they've certainly come a long way.