From the Los Angeles Review of Books, written by Andrew Scull.
Jon Stock’s recent book examines the deplorable career of prominent psychiatrist Willam Sargant and his brand of bio-therapeutics.
“Long after lobotomy and insulin comas had been recognized as ineffective and barbaric, Sargant (like Slater) was still recommending and making use of them. He was not even particularly discreet. In his best-selling 1967 autobiography The Unquiet Mind, he tells of a woman who came to him in despair, her life made unbearable by being married to what he concluded was a “sociopathic” husband. Sargant’s prescription for her? Since she was trapped in a miserable situation and her husband’s sociopathy was incurable, she should have a lobotomy. That would make her “indifferent” to her husband’s mistreatment.”
