January 19th, 2008
The Lobotomist to Air on PBS
The Lobotomist, an American Experience documentary about the notorious Dr Walter Freeman, will be aired Monday, January 21st on PBS. Dr Freeman was the inventor of the transorbital lobotomy and has a rather chequered reputation—as does the lobotomy which fell out of favor years ago. Stories about controversial or horrific treatment of patients are usually a bit too morbid for my taste, but they’re impossible to avoid when studying the buildings in which these treatments often took place. American Experience always makes intelligent, high-quality documentaries too, so this is worth seeing if you have the time.
Definately worth seeing… just finished watching it. Although I’ve read a lot about lobotomies, seeing the interviews and seeing the photos and film footage was VERY interesting. I also want to find out where some of the interviews were filmed – appeared to be inside an abandonded hospital somewhere.
Yeah, it was good. I ended up feeling bad for Dr Freeman by the end of it. Although obviously somewhat delusional, arrogant and self-serving, he was also trying to help people and render institutionalization obsolete. I liked Jack El-Hai’s comment about how Freeman’s travels at the end of his life were in a sense the doctor receiving therapy from his patients. That was a really good insight revealing Freeman as a human being and not the mad scientist some people portray him as.
I liked seeing some of the locations too. I couldn’t tell which hospital interiors they were using for the interviews though. I don’t think they were anywhere that I’ve seen the inside of.
I agree with you, Ethan, I felt kind of bad for Dr. Freeman by the end of the show too… I had always thought of him as some kind of monster who found sickening gratification from torturing others who couldn’t defend themselves… however it seemed he started out by actually trying to do do something to help those with mental illness where there was nothing else known to do. Becoming famous for these surgeries seemed to be a major motivator for him…though. I did become sickened when I learned he did a lobotomy on a 4 year old, and other children – and the 12 year old boy who defied his step-mother… I’m glad other methods of treatment have since been developed.
People often don’t realize that before the lobotomy there was really nothing to do but comfort the mentally ill. Dr. Kirkbride had visions of only a few hundred patients in a building, but when thousands were overcrowded in these buildings, the staff couldn’t even keep them comfortable as orginally designed… things needed to change… things got quite morbid for a while.
Very true. Although there was real abuse, most of the time these radical methods of treatment were honest attempts at helping the patients and alleviating the strains on the institutions. It’s easy to forget that and label them as “torture”. That’s not to say that lobotomy and shock treatments are good things though.