# MANHANDLING THE BRAIN: How did damaging the brains of the mentally ill ever seem a good idea? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/manhandling-the-brain-how-did-damaging-the-brains-of-the-mentally-ill-ever-seem-a-good-idea Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/manhandling-the-brain-how-did-damaging-the-brains-of-the-mentally-ill-ever-seem-a-good-idea.md Podcast: [BRAINLAND](https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859) Published: 2025-12-28T17:12:17+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/brainland/episodes/manhandling-the-brain-how-damaging-the-brains-of-psychiatric Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6452b6516dd22500113dc7ca/e/694d4ff744fae3e8025eab61/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brainland-6744859/episodes/manhandling-the-brain-how-did-damaging-the-brains-of-the-mentally-ill-ever-seem-a-good-idea Duration seconds: 2309 ## Resource In this festive episode Ken reads 'Manhandling the Brain', his essay on the origins of mid-20th century psychosurgery, an attempt to understand how, for over 20 years, so many people thought it such a good idea to damage the brains of the severely mentally ill and the lessons that can be learned. Participants: Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk Full text of the essay with bibliography and references are here, preceded by an essay on the early days of the EEG and more: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk/writing/ Bibliography top picks in bold) Moniz E (1935), Tentatives operatoires dans le traitement de certaines psychoses, Masson, Paris. Freeman W, Watts JW & Hunt T (1942) Psychosurgery: Intelligence, emotion and social behavior following prefrontal lobotomy for mental disorders. Springfield, Thomas. Board of Control (1947), Pre-frontal Leucotomy in 1000 Cases , HMSO. Shutts D (1982), Lobotomy: Resort to the Knife , Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. Rylander G ( 1948), Personality Analysis Before and After Frontal Lobotomy, in The Frontal Lobes , John F Fulton et al Eds., pp691-705. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore. Vallenstein ES (1986), Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical treatments for Mental Illnes s , Basic Books Inc.. Pressman JD, Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine, Cambridge University Press, 1998. El-Hai J (2005), The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, John Wiley & Sons. Howard Dully and Charles Fleming, Messing with my Head: The shocking true story of my lobotomy, Vermilion, 2007. Kotowicz Z (2012), Psychosurgery: the Birth of a New Scientific Para… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brainland-6744859/episodes/manhandling-the-brain-how-did-damaging-the-brains-of-the-mentally-ill-ever-seem-a-good-idea/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/manhandling-the-brain-how-did-damaging-the-brains-of-the-mentally-ill-ever-seem-a-good-idea.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.