psychosurgery
n. the treatment of a mental disorder by surgical removal or destruction of selective brain areas. The most well-known example of psychosurgery is prefrontal lobotomy, historically used particularly for schizophrenia but also a variety of other disorders. Psychosurgery was most popular from 1935 to 1960 and is among the most controversial of all psychiatric treatments ever introduced. Contemporary psychosurgery approaches (e.g., cingulotomy) are far more precisely targeted and confined in extent than the early techniques, employing high-tech imaging and a variety of highly controllable methods of producing minute lesions. Additionally, they are used only as a last resort and only for a handful of specific psychiatric disorders—major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder—that have been resistant to other available therapies.