Sixty or seventy years ago in civilized society, doctors would sometimes perform brain surgeries in order to try and alleviate suffering for some people who had a severe mental illness. This type of surgery has been all but abandoned in most countries like the U.S. and the U.K., although a few are still performed annually in very severe cases where all other methods have been exhausted.

It isn’t performed very often here because it isn’t a very effective method for trying to bring mental illness symptoms under control. Some doctors consider the technique right up there with using leeches to bloodlet people who had tuberculosis. Psychiatric medications and psychotherapy are far more effective in helping people with their mental illness symptoms. When psychosurgery is performed today, it is a treatment of last resort for almost every case.

But not in China.

Today’s Wall Street Journal notes in their article, In China, Brain Surgery Is Pushed on the Mentally Ill, how such brain surgeries are almost commonplace in some hospitals. It blames the prevalence of the procedure on profit motivations by the surgeons.

There’s nothing wrong with highly-limited use of an extreme technique when there’s some research to back up that use for specific problems (which there is in this case). But this sort of extreme procedure should never be a “treatment of choice” nor routine, anywhere, any time.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 2 Nov 2007
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.