Psychosurgery

Psychosurgery is a term for surgeries of the brain or autonomic nervous system involving the severance of neural pathways to effect a change in behaviour, usually to treat or alleviate severe mental illness. The procedures typically considered psychosurgery are now almost universally shunned as inappropriate, due in part to the emergence of less-invasive methods of treatment such as psychiatric medication. Although the term psychosurgery might imply a broad class of treatments, in reality, it is confined to variations on two themes:

Fictional Examples

• Ken Kesey's famed fictional character, Randle Patrick McMurphy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest who was, in the movie, played by Jack Nicholson.
• J. Frank Parnell, erratic driver of the radioactive Chevy Malibu in the movie Repo Man.
• A Hole in One, a 2004 movie about a young lady who wants an ice pick lobotomy during the height of its popularity.
• Rat Korga, major character in Samuel R. Delany's science fiction novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, voluntarily opts for psychosurgery to make him content to be a slave.
• Several victims of a serial killer named Gerry Schnauz in an episode of The X-Files entitled "Unruhe".
• Session 9, a 2001 horror movie about a group of men hired to remove the asbestos from a defunct mental hospital. Without spoiling the movie, it can be said that lobotomies are involved.
• Hannibal, in which Hannibal Lecter lobotomizes Paul Krendler, played by Ray Liotta.