If you're interested in trepanation, there's a fascinating documentary from the late 90s called 'A Hole in the Head' about people performing self-trepanation. Cooky for sure but I've been fascinated ever since. It has made me wonder what percentage of ancient trepanations were done purely for the mysticism of piercing something which shouldn't be pierced.
Well, at the very least electroconvulsive therapy is proven to be effective in psychoses, while lobotomy has no added benefits. ECT will (or so I hope) be replaced in the future but maybe not by something fundamentally different - just more easily palatable.
There is the problem of pre-history and people not writing stuff down. So the topic is always going to be open to interpretation.
People in the 60's did the hole in the head to get high - more oxygen to the brain. Not everyone but a few people. It could have been a thing like that fashion a few years ago with people getting their tongues split in two - detestable as a thought for most people but with some people who get into it.
I thought that there were also necklaces with the bone discs, not seen any stories of that recently.
