The other theory

Chuck/Sheehan (who was supposed to be his chief shrink) actually led him down the conspiracy path, putting the idea in Teddy's mind that they came after him to lure him to the island.

And everything that Cawley does doesn't go along with what any half-decent shrink would do either. He's constantly trying to put all sorts of guilt onto Teddy, when it's that EXACT-SAME guilt that made him crazy in the first place.

And why would he give the most-violent person on the island free reign of the place?

Did he really want his car blown up and the guard and other doctor almost killed?

He could've easily gotten himself killed too with his "radical therapy".

If that was all just in his head, it's no wonder he wanted a lobotomy at the end.

I've only read a few of them so far, so I've got A LOT of reading to do.

TLDR- I never said Cawley was an "evil scientist". He, like many individuals, thinks the ends will justify his unethical means, and he will be vindicated someday. I also believe he is self-deceptive in that his primary motivations are probably egoistic, but he rationalizes his moral compromises as being for the greater good rather than his own interests. I suspect that's a common orientation.

The "look of grief" you see on Cawley's face is a subjective assessment. He could be sad because Teddy refusing to go along also meant that his theories were discredited, and he just lost "everything". He could also be sad for Teddy, too, on some level, because he wasted a human being on his wrong-headed theories and feels bad about it. The role-play is still a harmful and unethical human experiment even if he feels sorry for those he destroys while trying to make a name for himself.




There is A LOT more in the final scene than Cawley's sad expression, which probably has more to do with the fact that his life's work is discredited than it does "grief".

Cawley LITERALLY turns his back on Teddy in the final scene!!!!! He stands yards away from Teddy and doesn't have the guts to approach him directly or speak to him. Scorsese had a reason for the distance and the back turning. Scorsese says that Teddy/Andrew was "sane" in the final scene, but Cawley doesn't even talk to him to assess his state of mind. If he cared so much for Teddy, don't you think he should have talked to Teddy/Andrew and ascertained that he was indeed "insane" before he ordered the lobotomy?

He just orders the lobotomy on a nod from a junior physician!!!!! Don't you think that is notable? It's because it was never about Teddy's mental health. It was about control. They were waiting to see if Teddy decided to play ball and conform to their dictates. He refused and was sent to the human waste treatment facility for a lobotomy - failed experiment subjects were a "disposal problem"- in real life unethical mind experiments. The lighthouse is identified as a "sewage treatment facility" for a reason.

We can always make up some reason to support our own opinions, people always do, but to do that in this case to conform to the idea that Cawley is acting in good faith requires dismissing the obvious reason for Scorsese's choices out of hand - Cawley is ashamed and guilty and a failure in the final scene. That is my own subjective opinion taking into account some objective cues that aren't considered when people are defending Cawley.


The look of immense contempt for Cawley on Teddy's face as he walks away to his doom says a lot, too. Those who defend Cawley never mention the way Teddy looks down his nose at Cawley, a look that says "I win, a$$hole. I outsmarted you".


Unless Cawley is a total sociopath, and I don't think he is, I imagine he does feel guilty and even sad for what he did to Teddy. The novel makes it clear that Sheehan feels guilty the rest of his life. That is irrelevant to the FACT that the role-play itself is unethical whether it be research into helping the mentally ill or mind control for intelligence purposes.

THEY RISK HIS LIFE AND THE LIVES OF OTHERS FOR A HAIL MARY TO SAVE CAWLEY'S "SOMETHING VALUABLE" - his failed program on the island.

Saving Teddy from a lobotomy = Cawley saving his program on the island.

Teddy/Andrew getting a lobotomy = discrediting Cawley's theories and losing everything.

You can't separate these outcomes. The doctors both focus on their personal/professional goals rather than Teddy's emotional pain. Sheehan does this in the lighthouse after Teddy breaks down - maybe the lowest point of his life. Rather than focusing on Teddy's grief and emotional pain, he brings up the fact that they will be discredited and lose everything if Teddy/Andrew doesn't go along with what they are telling him. That is very significant. They don't care about his feelings when he needs emotional support the most.

After poor Teddy/Andrew confesses in the cell, same thing. He has supposedly just remembered something that's so SO AWFUL that he dissociated and became so dangerously psychotic that he required this extreme treatment to be "cured". And what do the doctors do? They don't focus on Teddy and his emotional pain at all. Actually, they are pretty cold and harsh when it comes to Delores' death and the deaths of the children.

They start talking about how THEY NEED him to not "relapse" like he did in the past. If he "relapses" that means that they are discredited and lose everything. Since they did nothing to support Teddy/Andrew in his time of need, no wonder he "relapsed". It's like unconsciously, once they get what they first need from him - the words of confession - they just continue with the next phase of what THEY NEED FROM TEDDY - that he not "relapse". They completely bypass Teddy/Andrew's raw and tender feelings and grief that were extreme enough to make him the worst of the worst psychotic patients. That is very important.

No wonder "Andrew" was unable to cope and opted to "wipe his memories" with a lobotomy.

Cawley made it explicit that he would FIGHT ANYONE INCLUDING TEDDY, his supposed patient, to avoid being discredited and losing everything he built on the island. There is a conflict of interest between Teddy and Cawley. Don't forget that in the end Teddy/Andrew chose the lobotomy over Cawley's cure so Cawley wasn't acting according to what Teddy thought was best for him – he chose the lobotomy that the risky role-play was supposed to avoid. No matter how pathological, "Andrew" had found an effective way to cope and they took it away from him and replaced it with NOTHING as if their goal was for “Andrew” to be in a permanent state of guilt, sorrow and self-loathing..

In fact, Cawley explicitly says he DOESN'T care about Teddy's mental health at all - he could keep his delusions and fantasies if Teddy was CONTROLLABLE. The novel even emphasizes that Cawley would like it "A LOT" if Teddy could live in his fantasy - but that can't be because he is uncontrollable. The warden also makes that point - that Cawley believed Teddy could be CONTROLLED. Control is not the same as restoring mental health. Teddy's mental health is not the reason for the role-play. There is no reason to assume this. The reason is control - same as a lobotomy.

Lobotomy = Control (not therapy)

Role Play = Control (not therapy)

The role-play is a psychological and perhaps chemical alternative to lobotomy. There may be no effective or moral difference. The only difference I can think of is that the lobotomy is irreversible. Cawley wants his role-play treatment to be permanent, too. The fact that it isn't as permanent as the lobotomy is a major failing for his method.

An overlooked but telling look on Cawley's face is the shame and guilt that he expresses when Teddy and Sheehan are talking about how Teddy risked his life to save his fake partner. The moment that the experiment was shown to be life threatening - probably when Teddy and Billings on Ward C nearly killed each other, the experiment should have been stopped. Instead, they continued and Teddy continued to risk his own life.

Nelson, the guard, was hurt when Teddy overpowered him to get into the lighthouse to save Chuck. Nelson was literally caught with his pants down meaning that Cawley didn't warn him that Teddy was coming. He thought Teddy was going to kill him. There was ample opportunity to get Nelson out of harm's way but Cawley didn't do that. Why? Because he needed an example of Teddy being violent to make his point that Teddy/Andrew was a dangerous psychotic. He used that contrived situation to dishonestly serve his goals for Teddy/Andrew.

Nuremberg Code:

The experiment should be set up in a way that avoids unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injuries.

It should not be conducted when there is any reason to believe that it implies a risk of death or disabling injury.

The experiment is unethical on other counts as well, but this one is particularly egregious, and Scorsese made a point of having Sheehan agree that Teddy risked his life for Chuck and also to show Cawley's guilty expression reaction. Cawley's guilty expression is not ambiguous. He knows he unethically allowed Teddy to risk his life for his own selfish agenda. He knows he did wrong. Stopping the experiment as he should have would be the same as conceding failure. Cawley risked Teddy's life because that was his only chance to prove his theory.

Cawley is doing what he is doing under the auspices of the federal government because they thought they had to do unethical experiments for "national security" and the greater good. There were all kinds of notorious unethical experiments in that era such as Tuskegee syphilis study, Willowbrook hepatitis study, Guatemala syphilis study, biological warfare tests on unwitting subjects, and radiation tests as well as the notorious CIA mind control experiments commonly known as MKULTRA, which is what Teddy suspects in 1954 although these experiments weren't exposed until the 1970s.

Teddy asks why an intelligence agency would consult with a psychiatrist. The deputy warden didn't answer, but with the benefit of hindsight, we know what intelligence agencies were doing with psychiatrists in 1954. They were doing mind control experiments, often unethical, and often on unwitting subjects including those confined to psychiatric facilities.

They were especially enthusiastic about giving LSD to unsuspecting individuals. LSD could easily account for all of Teddy/Andrew's mental symptoms. In fact, it is the best explanation. These military and CIA experiments are a well documented historical fact, not a "conspiracy theory" involving "evil scientists", but a covert operation carried out for the ostensible greater good - and the twisted amusement of certain CIA personnel.

Many mainstream psychiatrists carried out these unethical experiments. One big reason for the extreme secrecy was to protect the reputations of the professionals who were choosing to participate in experiments that were not just unethical, but often would have had serious consequences if discovered. That is what Cawley is referring to when he puts Teddy/Andrew on notice about exposing what he was doing - what the public wouldn't understand.


Some of these government experiments were more outrageous than the psychological manipulation they did to Teddy in the film. These unethical experiments weren't done by "evil scientists". Dr. Cameron was the president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, American Psychiatric Association, World Psychiatric Association, the American Psychopathological Association, and the Society of Biological Psychiatry. He wasn’t a mad scientist on the fringe.

Highly respected Cornell psychiatrist Harold Wolff, M.D, according to wikipedia, "had a boundless capacity for kindness and understanding". He was a nice guy, an acclaimed researcher and academic with a legitimate medical practice. He also knowingly dabbled in "black psychiatry" for the CIA. He proposed Operation Hilltop, which sounds a lot like Shutter Island.

...assemble, collate, analyze and assimilate this information [black psychiatry, torture, hypnosis, drugs, etc.] and will then undertake experimental investigations designed to develop new techniques of offensive/defensive intelligence use ... Potentially useful secret drugs (and various brain damaging procedures) will be similarly tested in order to ascertain the fundamental effect upon human brain function and upon the subject's mood ... Where any of the studies involve potential harm of the subject, we expect the Agency to make available suitable subjects and a proper place for the performance of the necessary experiments.— Dr. Harold Wolff, Cornell University Medical School

The “kind”, “understanding” Dr. Wolff is proposing something that is both illegal and unethical. His intention was to do experiments that he knows are likely to cause harm to the subjects. Is Teddy/Andrew a "suitable subject"? Expendable? No family to come looking for him. Government employee, so they won't be looking for him at work. Appropriate "training" in the military. Healthy. May have stumbled upon highly covert activities when snooping around to find the arsonist that started the fire that killed his wife. Needs to be "neutralized". Is Shutter Island a "proper place" for the kinds of unethical, covert "brain damaging" experiments that Dr. Wolff has in mind? Isolated. Relatively modern facility. Easy to control incoming information and prevent people from contacting the outside.

Sounds about right to me. No villainous "evil scientists" required. Just scientists willing to compromise ethical standards for the "greater good" or "national security" as long as they don't get caught.










Are they slow? Yeah, they're dead.   They're all messed up. 

He’s right, though.