In this chapter of Jon Ronson's The
Psychopath Test, the author focuses on the methodology used by Elliott
Barker, and others, to cure psychopaths and schizophrenics of their mental
illnesses. Ronson came across Elliott Barker through references to Barker in
academic papers read in Ronson’s search of understanding the meaning of
psychopathy. After many attempts to contact Barker without success, Ronson was
rewarded with a response from Barker himself. With this newfound connection he
was told of Elliott’s journey to becoming a psychiatrist, and the use of radical
mental illness treatment methods. In Elliott’s personal research of treatment
methods he learned of nude psychotherapy sessions where all participants are
completely nude for a twenty-four hour nonstop session. Barker also came across
Kingsley Hall, where schizophrenics and doctors alike become patients together.
These influences led to Elliott’s use of LSD-injected, nude sessions in his
psychotherapy program for criminal psychopaths. These sessions lasted for
eleven days at a time and patients would ‘counsel’ each other in their time
together. After many sessions, some patients were said to be ‘cured’ and they
were freed from jail and sent back into the world. However, despite their ‘cured’
status, eighty percent of the psychopaths released back into civilization
relapsed, killing again, thus proving the psychotherapy sessions were a failure
and actually made the criminals worse as the previous relapse percentage had
only been sixty percent.
As I was reading this chapter of
Ronson’s book, I was very surprised at some of the methodology psychiatrists
were able to use in the ‘so-called’ treatment of their psychopathic patients. I
had never heard of such a thing as nude therapy sessions and especially not the
use of LSD on criminal psychopaths in order to let them counsel each other in a
hallucinogenic state. In addition, I could not believe that Barker thought he
had ‘cured’ his patients. Psychopathy is not something that can be cured
through the use of LSD and counseling from other psychopaths. Psychopathy is a
mental condition that does not have a cure. I am also curious as to how these
psychiatrists were allowed to perform these kinds of therapeutical/counseling
sessions on their patients, in the first place. Their methods don’t seem very ethical.
I would hope if methods like these were used in the United States that better
surveillance would be kept on the patients, whether they are cured or not.
