As part of the work of the American Psychiatric Association Task Force on Psychosurgery, the author surveyed 1901 neurosurgeons on how many psychosurgical procedures they performed in 1971, 1972, and 1973. A total of 1481 questionnaires were returned; 195 neurosurgeons indicated they had performed a total of 487 procedures for intractable pain and 1039 procedures for psychiatric conditions. Excluding the procedures reported by 4 neurosurgeons who performed more than 20 psychosurgical operations in any one of the 3 years, the number of psychosurgical operations is 575 for the three years, which the author suggests should allay fears about the abuse of psychosurgery.