I found out something about my maternal grandfather, the psychiatrist Ralph S. Banay (who I never knew…) today as I was researching Margaret Wise Brown’s Freudian analyst (Robert Bak) for my comic. Bak was a Hungarian emigre and lived in NYC. I was casually wondering if there was a chance my grandfather Ralph, who also was Hungarian and lived in NYC at the same time, and Bak might have known each other. Anyway, I didn’t get to the bottom of that and it’s not even relevant to my project really, but it roaming around the internet lead me to this snippet from outhistory.org
Banay, Ralph S. and L. Davidoff. “Apparent Recovery of a Sex Psychopath after Lobotomy,” Journal of Criminal Psychopathology (N.Y.), vol. 4, no. I (July 1942), p. 59-66. Here the doctors report that after lobotomy the patient’s masturbation stopped, he became “complacent” and “tranquil,” and “showed no sign of conflict with his environment.” He “remained courteous, meek, obliging and attentive.” The doctors conclude that lobotomy “might be a new and important development.” A psychological dynamic here, unrecognized by the doctors, is a masochistic subject asking for a lobotomy, and the sadistic physicians obliging.
a masochistic subject asking for a lobotomy, and the sadistic physicians obliging