Examined Lives focuses on answering the question: how did a competent, vivacious woman end up having an unnecessary lobotomy at the hands of Walter Freeman, who famously botched the lobotomy on Rosemary Kennedy, and what effect did this have on her young daughter? It is based on extensive family documents as well as health records and other research and gives a no-holds-barred look at mental illness. It is a cautionary but in the end a hopeful tale as even the effects of a lobotomy can be mitigated in the care of the right people.