Psychosurgery for political purposes.

Neurosurgeons and psychiatrists who favor psychosurgery sometimes show dismay that anyone would accuse them of harboring political aims, and it is true that the average psychosurgeon has little or no interest in the application of his technology to overtly political problems. But it is equally true that several of the nation's leading psychosurgeons have persistently linked their work to the control of urban violence, ghetto disorders and political dissent. These men rode the wave of hysteria generated by the urban uprisings of the late 1960's and parlayed the nation's fear into federal and state grants for themselves. As I review their statements and ac tions, keep in mind their shared political characteristics. Each of the psychosurgeons targeted potential patients according to well-recognized political categories. They began with a political issue of grave national concern, the inner-city uprisings of 1967 and 1968, and then attempted to redefine it as a medical disease or syndrome to justify their own interventions. This is analogous to the Russian practice of redefining political dissent into psychiatric categories in order to subject the dissenters to psychiatric authority and treatment. Even if "violence" were a recognized medical disease or syndrome, focus on a politically volatile segment of the population would raise the probability of a primarily political interest. In the absence of any such medical disease or syndrome, I the attempt to