Comments on: Howard Dully’s Lobotomy

By: Our Jo

Our Jo — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:22:04 +0000

My son leaves lights on during the day, argues about going to bed, argues about everything really… walks around with his head in the clouds most of the time, hes 11 and as normal as the next kid. Why was Howards mom questioning him about his daydreams? I mean, whats the relevance to her life what the kid was daydreaming about?!
Im horrified for Howard. Totally unnecessary ice pik useage.

By: guitarzan

guitarzan — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:44:08 +0000

Thank God we still have “electroconvulsive therapy” and “Voodoo” for doctors to play with.

By: stholas

stholas — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:59:15 +0000

Right, brilliant article. Having been a victim of brainwashing myself, I can understand to a certain degree what Dully has been going through. Though I don’t imply that what I went through is anything compared to the permanent damage that he has suffered, for a very long time there, I was very worried that it might have been permanent. It’s been two long years of recovery, but the feelings of violation, inadequacy and chronic depression I suffered with should not be wished upon even your worst enemy. I simply cannot put in words the horror of having your mind messed with, and the lunatics who indulge in these practices are the absolute scum of humanity. Perhaps a nice little article on mind control is in order for this site?

By: rosado

rosado — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:16:44 +0000

I have just read Mr. Dully’s story. I am only 18 and never really knew about lobotomies and how they worked so i wasnt really conserned until I stumbled apon the book. Howard Dully and thousands of others have been through this teribble medical horror. Many have died and others didnt so any changes in them except for personality differences. I have become so aware of this that i have decided to look further into pyschology and the way the brain works.

By: trisha1974

trisha1974 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:37:53 +0000

[quote]The Best Opinion said: “I had heard of lobotomies before, but I had never read an article on the “science” of the procedure. However, I did know that a lot of people were messed up by it, b/c we watched a video on Alcatraz in our U.S. History class, and they filmed an “interview” w/a man who had a lobotomy-all he could do was stare and drool like an infant. Giving the poor kid a lobotomy b/c he’s “unbelievably defiant”? How is not going to bed on time and using unnecessary electricity being unbelievebly defiant? He was just being a kid-testing his limits. And I do agree-psychoactive drugs pretty much are the new lobotomy. When I was on Zoloft for my depression, I found that it did nothing but help me gain weight and make sure I was unresponsive emotionally. I would never use psychoactive drugs-like Ritalin-on my kids. And who decided what is “unbelievably defiant” anyway? Geesh.”[/quote]

First off, they are psychotropic drugs..not psychoactive. Secondly, my son has adhd/odd and I was against medication for a long time, which lead him to be placed in a special classroom for kids with behavior problems and labeled with a name that preceeded his presence. I put him on meds about a yr and a half ago and he has since then been able to get himself mainstreamed into a “normal” classroom. He has made great strides. All of which would not be possible without his medication. I am proud of him and I think he has a wonderful chance at being a productive person. I am a nurse in a psychiatric hospital and the lesson is clear…take your meds. Simple as that. Do you want to function or not? Sorry to get off topic………….this was supposed to be about lobotomies….

By: JakobGeorge

JakobGeorge — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:11:38 +0000

Having worked with so-called mentally ill in institutions and community settings, I can say without hesitation that the system itself is crazy, but those incarcerated in the institutions seem not to be except insofar as they are reacting to the oppression of their daily lives.
For some reason if someone is unhappy they can be drugged into a catatonic stupor to cure whatever pseudo-scientific bullshit label some shrink has stuck on them. Unhappiness doesn’t sound pathological, but depression sure does. Oooh, better write a prescription!
From what I’ve seen, if you can pretend that everything is o.k. then you’re not considered crazy, but if for any reason you question anything, like what the exhaust from your doctor’s Lexus might be doing to the environment, or if you raise the idea that psychiatry is a dangerous pseudo-science that is racist, sexist, and very class based – no crazy rich people, y’all! – or if you raise other issues like the fact that 200,000 Americans die every year as a side effect of prescription drugs and of those 106,000 are hospital in-patients, you might be considered crazy by your spychiatrist. You have to wonder if these are people you want to trust your health to.
Undoubtedly somewhere in their great and mighty tome, the DSM-IV, a.k.a. the Malleus Malificarum, will be at least several labels that will earn you a lifetime prescription to something.
You are not, however, considered crazy if you want to build a bomb that will blow a continent off the side of the planet as long as you have the academic creditionals to help you realize that goal; you are not crazy if you want to invest your hard earned money in companies that build land-mines that blow the legs off civilians. (You are crazy if you ask your shrink if he invests in those companies, though! Pretend that everything is o.k., remember.)
Given the suffering I see daily, I’m willing to be that for every Peter Breggin there are 10,000 Walter Freemans. It’s been very cathartic for me to write the above. (I could go on at length about psychiatry and it’s evil twin, eugenics, the role both played in the Nazi Holocaust, etc., but I’ll spare you at this point.)
A little joke: What’s the difference between psychiatry and a bag of dog sh#t? The bag!

By: Wingnut

Wingnut — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:36:35 +0000

I just recently drove by the facility in Pendelton Oregon (you see it from the freeway) that was the real world place that “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest”
was based on. I don’t have the facts, but my father, a university professor in Psychology, has told me there was truth behind the story.

Anyway, I don’t like the side effects of some drugs I take, but not talking them is far worse. I think without some anti-depressents I take I would have long since committed suicide because the depression level was so bad. But I also wonder why so many people seem depressed these days. Were people always this depressed, or is some of it modern society and its stress levels? I do know some famous people in history had pretty severe depression and maybe we just recognize it more recently. In my case I suspect I was slightly depressed my entire life, but not enough to suspect. I think I might have had a much better life if some of the modern drugs were available 40 years ago.

Curiously, my shrink performs a large number of electro-shock treatments. Evidently it has progressed quite a bit over the years, and has good results when no drug does. Still, kinda scares the s*&* out of me!

By: r jeremias

r jeremias — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:11:16 +0000

[quote]Bambi said: “I don’t see any problems with the idea. It was clearly done unproffessionally but I think it should be looked into and be made a whole lot safer. Some people have serious problems, and this might simply be a good solution for some.

For example there are lots of people who get shock therapy regulary and it helps them alot. Infact some people have a lot of trouble living without it.

One of the main driving factors for this social bias against shock therapy and lobotamy is due to the book “One flew over the Coocoo’s Next” Which I have heard has put back American psychiatric care for around 10 years. It was good story but not based on any scientfic information and gave the impression to many that mental institutions are evil places where patients are tortured and abused”[/quote]

R.J. reply:
Really, now, what planet are you from? The movie “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest” was a classic that ‘educated’ the masses. Assylums, as they were called, were barbaric and inhumane. People were tossed into them for many reasons — often having little to do with insanity. Helpless people were treated like rabid animals, abused and tormented by their keepers. Many experaments (medicines and surgical procedures) took place in these ‘institutions’ on innocent people. You are either very nieve, or very young.
I have seen films of many of these places (filmed in secret) and in one film three classmates ran from the room, two vomited and the rest of us had nightmares for a long time. In the 50s and 60s the Western Society was booming, and along with it, medical break-throughs. I agree that many people do need medication, shock treatment, even surgery, but what went on in these assylums was something that no fictional horror film could ever match!
The movie “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest” only hit the tip of ice-burg regarding the conditions in such places, but it was enough to raise public awareness and bring about changes through-out the world for the betterment of care for the mentally ill. The movie forced the medical world to start treating human beings as such, and cleaning up the institutions (hopefully) for good. In ‘first world’ medicine, brain surgery is not done with an ice pick any more. …

By: Truth-Engineer

Truth-Engineer — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:49:22 +0000

Nuh uh. I was circumcised, and I'm mentally ill because my mother is.

By: foff@handbag.com

foff@handbag.com — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:52:07 +0000

You all seem shocked and awed by this horrific act while hospitals in America still routinely mutilate childrens' penises.

Myabe Mr Freeman was mutilated as a baby and was taking this out on people.

Circumcision is just as bad. And circumcision is the cause of most mental ilness today.