CLINICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF PREFRONTAL LOBOTOMY IN CHRONIC SCHIZOPHRENIA

Abstract

THE INVESTIGATIONS to be reported here represent an attempt to give a well rounded picture of the reactions of a group of patients with malignant chronic mental illnesses to psychosurgery. It is hoped that this study, in conjunction with the report of physiological findings in the same group, will serve that purpose. Clarification of the value of this treatment in such a situation is badly needed, not only from the standpoint of specific responses but also in order to estimate what can be expected with the widespread use of this treatment in the chronic psychotic hospital population. The findings reported here certainly do not supply the final answer to such a question. Nevertheless, they may serve as an incentive to more extensive exploration along such lines. Chronic schizophrenia represents the therapeutist's defeat in mass form. There is no better example in the field of medicine. Each successive new therapeutic development